CLOSE TO CHRIST
If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.(Col. 3:1-2)
So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. (Mark 16:19)
Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. (Rom. 8:34)
The desire of the Christian is to be close to Christ. In everything we do, we want to know his presence and sense the spirit of his fellowship. So many of us have mistakenly thought that such is a difficult endeavor. That to live a life of abiding in intimate fellowship with Christ is beyond the reach of our practical grasp. But that is not the case, not for any of us. Fellowship with Christ is our birthright. We not only should be close to Christ, we have a blood-bought right to be.
The key is in the attention of our hearts. There is nothing more important to us than the place where we focus our attention. We are never going to grow spiritually beyond our ability to keep our focus on Jesus. He is so altogether lovely and amazing and he makes us to know the beauty of his holiness in such a way that we find ourselves smitten with the depth of his love. And that is the thing that keeps us focused on him.
The problem, dear believer, is not that you do not focus enough on him as much as it is that you do not understand how focused he is on you. You cannot love him beyond your willingness to know the love he has for you. So much is this the case that we should not even concern ourselves with anything that we have done or are doing. It should instead be a matter of who Christ is and what he has done and what he is doing even now. The focus of power is on him. The more we think about his love for us, in other words, the more love we will have for him. The more we keep in mind that he is thinking about us the more we will find ourselves thinking about him. That is the key. Not us, but him. Focus on his greatness and you will find yourself becoming greater as a believer.
Whatever our hearts are focused upon becomes a “magnet” which attracts us closer and closer. We are drawn consistently to whatever our minds are obsessed with. The Bible teaches the law of attraction as surely as the philosophers of the world do. It is a principle that cannot be denied that our lives move in the direction of our thoughts. We are the sum total of what we believe ourselves to be.
If we think ourselves unfaithful and unyielding to the ways of God, then unfaithful and unyielding we will be. If we consider that we cannot get stronger as believers, then we might as well give up now. We cannot grow beyond our own beliefs and expectations. If we think that we are doomed to wallow in a life of spiritual mediocrity for the rest of our days, and that spiritual growth is not possible for us, then we will never be more than we are now. But the reverse is also true: if we see ourselves growing in faith, growing in strength, growing in knowledge and discernment and spiritual power, then we will find these things becoming our reality a little more each day.
Dewayne Dunaway
