What did Jesus do? Focus
In our continuing study of what it means to have the mind of Christ we first saw that a Christlike mind is alive. The mindset on the Spirit exudes life. Last week we looked at the fact that Jesus lived in joy. He rejoiced in all things.
As we continue to consider what Jesus did, we find that He was always focused. The spiritual mind is focused. Think about this report from the Stanford News Service:
“So you think you can multitask? Texting while driving? No problem. Watching television and reading the Bible? No problem. Checking your email while listening to a spouse, a child, or a friend? No problem.
“In reality, however, according to a team of researchers at Stanford University, multi-tasking causes big problems. A Stanford University news service article announced the study this way: ‘Attention, multitaskers (if you can pay attention, that is): Your brain may be in trouble.’ The researchers originally set out to discover what gave multitaskers their special focus; instead, they were surprised to discover that in many ways multitasking impairs performance. So while many people think they’re effective at juggling multiple tasks, they’re actually pretty lousy at it.
“For instance, heavy multitaskers are suckers for distraction and for irrelevancy. According to one of the researchers, ‘Everything distracts them.’ Multitaskers were also more unorganized in their ability to keep and retrieve information. They were even worse at the main thing that defines multitasking: switching from one task to the next. Heavy multitaskers underperformed in almost every area of the study.
“The article based on the study concluded with this advice: ‘By doing less, you might accomplish more.’”
One of our spiritual problems is a lack of focus. We become distracted or led astray simply because the mind is bombarded by so much stuff. Paul expressed the problem this way in II Cor. 11:3 “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”
Single-mindedness is the discipline of focus. Most of our minds dart off in hundreds of directions in the course of a day. So the challenge is to shut out all of the periphery and the things that shout for our attention and to focus on simple and pure devotion to Christ. The single-minded Christian chooses to take every thought captive and pay attention throughout each day to Christ, and His commands, and His person, and His ways. The mind of Christ is willfully and purposefully set completely on Christ.
