I Noticed July 9

So I’m sitting in the worship service the very first night of the Church of God Convention. Natalie Grant was leading worship and Jim Lyon, General Director of the Church of God, is getting ready to come out and preach. Beth and I didn’t arrive into the service until after it had started because we were getting our kids signed in for their programming. This meant we were sitting near the back row.
As I was sitting there I started to notice all kinds of things. The cameras that helped stream the services to the world were directly in front of us. A very prominent pastor in front of me seemed completely disinterested in what was happening. They had lights, not only on the stage, but also on the side walls.The stage background seemed to be a wall full of pouches of some kind. There was a smattering of people, mostly in the front, who were standing.
Then God hit me with the story of Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42). He revealed to me in that moment that they both noticed things, but they chose to focus on different things. That then made me wonder, what am I focusing on? There I was in the midst of a worship service with many of the spiritual warriors of our movement and I was choosing to focus on everything but the God we were there to worship.
So what are you focusing on? Maybe, like me, other things are distracting you from worshipping God.Maybe there is someone near you that needs to hear your story with Jesus. Maybe being part of the church just feels more like work and less like a relationship with Jesus.
Maybe there is fear holding you back from what God is telling you to do. Many things will compete for our focus. We don’t have to get lost in what surrounds us though. We can set our focus on Jesus. What will you choose as most important?
In Him,
Pastor Tim.