How to change your focus.
(Transcript)
Merry Christmas. Thanks for tuning into the timeout video. This video is purposed to help us to focus on something positive, to change a negative perspective, or alter a habitual mindset that’s bringing, uh, chaos or drama or pain to our lines this week. We’re going to talk about Christmas. Of course. It’s Christmas time.
I love Christmas time. I love all holidays. Any celebration there is I want to celebrate. I think it’s important that we as people celebrate what there is to celebrate. It’s easy to get bogged down by. What’s not right, but what’s not happening. What’s going wrong in our lives, by the government, by the chaos, by the neighbors, by whatever it is that isn’t the way you want it to.
And if you focus on that, that’s going to drag you down or you can celebrate what there is to celebrate and be grateful for what you have. And that takes you up up up. That’s a positive way to live. I was thinking about Christmas. My pastor asked me to light the advent candle. If you don’t know what advent is, it is a Christian holiday the week before Christmas, where we light the candle, uh, in honor of different things too, uh, celebrate the fact that Jesus came and that Jesus is coming back.
Okay. Uh, if you do not have a relationship with God, I encourage you to begin to pray and ask God to show himself to you. I don’t know how that will happen, but I know that it will happen because that’s a prayer that God wants to answer and he will. So, if you do not know Christ and are not in a relationship with him, begin to ask him to prove himself to you so that you can come to a place where you are in that relationship and be free and have something to celebrate because I am free.
I have things to celebrate and, listen, I spent many, many years of my life where I did not have things to celebrate. Because if I was celebrating, it was the fact that I got away with breaking this law. I didn’t get caught with this drug or, you know, whatever, just negative stuff. It wasn’t things to really celebrate
It wasn’t anything to be grateful for and proud of. And now my life is, is so different. I can’t even explain to you how positive it is and that’s because of Christ. There’s no doubt about it. He came into the world to restore us to God so that we could walk in freedom. He’s already delivered you from whatever it is that binds you and blinds you.
If it’s a negative relationship, if it’s an eating disorder, if it’s pride, anger, shame, it doesn’t matter what it is. We all have issues and that’s why Christ came. To free us from those things, but that doesn’t happen if we don’t focus on him and obey him, listen, God rarely does things the way you think he will.
You may be praying for God to deliver you from this negative relationship. Now your expectations could be that God changes this man or gets him off of drugs or, uh, helps him to not be abusive or, or whatever the negative in the relationship may be. But God may deliver you in a way that that guy ends up in jail and you go, wow, I don’t want to be with somebody like this anymore.
And then you’re aggravated with God because you’re like, I prayed and I expected you to change this guy. And now I’m single, but God delivered you. It just wasn’t in the way that you thought he would. Listen, stop trying to put God in a box and figure out what he’s going to do and how it’s going to. When you really are celebrating who God is and believing that he’s capable and willing to deliver you, you can then see how he’s delivering you.
Like I said, he doesn’t ever do things the way we think he’d do it. Why would he send his son to come and die? To free us from sin. That is not something we think is a good idea. There’s no doubt about it, but had it not happened, we would not be free. And so it’s Christmas time. And at Christmas time I’m challenging you to celebrate what Christmas is really about.
Was Jesus born on December 25th? Probably not, that doesn’t matter. We’re celebrating the fact that Christ was born and we are now restored to him and free from anything that keeps us separated from him. I hope you guys have an awesome Christmas and I will see you next week.