Having a Mind Focused on God
Having a Mind Focused on God
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” (Isaiah 26:3 KJV) God laid this verse on my (Natalee) heart one night as I was Bible journaling. I was looking for a verse to journal, and I came across this one. It has stuck with me since then, and I wanted to share it with y’all. Whether you are new to our blogs, or you’ve been reading them since the beginning, we’re glad you’re here, and we hope this blog helps you!
What does this verse mean?
As I (Natalee) said in my weekly post last Monday, we all know that the King James Version of the Bible can be difficult to understand, so we’re here to help you understand it better. You do need to be saved in order to become a Christian, but living for Christ is so much more than just being saved. In order to live for Christ, we must have a relationship with Him, and be fully focused on Jesus. Now, we’re not saying that God doesn’t want you to stay focused on other important things, (ex: school, jobs, college, etc.) but the Lord does want us to put Him very first in our lives. This is what this verse is telling us. Let’s take a look at this verse again. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” (Isaiah 26:3 KJV) In this verse, the Bible is telling us that the people who keep their minds focused on God, and those who trust in Him will live peacefully. This is NOT saying that those who stay focused on the Lord will never face any trials. Until we get to heaven, each of us will face plenty of hard times, but God will be there beside us through it all! All God wants is for us to trust in, and have a relationship with Him during our life on this Earth. He also knows that it will be very difficult for us to stay focused on Him with the temptations of the world all around us, and that we may even lose focus sometimes. But there is good news! He is never going to give up on us. No matter how many times we stray, or lose focus. No matter how long it takes us to come back to Him. He is going to welcome us with open arms. He will not be upset with you because you strayed away from Him, however, He will still love you the same way. It is never too late to come back to Him!
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace”
As believers our goal should be to stay focused on God and keep our minds on Him. Now if we did do this 24/7 then yes, we would be in perfect peace 24/7! But because we are humans, we often fail to put our trust in Jesus even if we know we should. So if you're wondering “Why do I not live in perfect peace?” and your questioning whether this verse is true or not, just remember, you have to stay focused on Him and who He is! If we focus on Him and who He is then we will know how much He loves us and how He is taking care of us (Matthew 6:26 talks about how if God takes care of the birds in the air, He will also take care His children, because we are so much more valuable to Him!) even if we don’t think He is. “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” (Isaiah 26:3 again) In this verse “peace” means peace of mind. As in you're not worried or anxious! Not as in you don’t come across people who do you wrong, or you are put through a health problem. While we are still on this earth we will also have things come up that we want to worry and be anxious about. But we must remember no matter what happens, God is taking care of you if you are His child! And so because of this truth we don’t have to be scared about anything at all, and we can totally put our trust in God! I wanted to quickly tell you about a time a godly man in the Bible trusted in God completely and was in “perfect peace” because his mind was stayed on God, and he trusted Him. In Genesis chapter 22 God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac. Now doesn’t that sound terrible?! If God had told me to sacrifice my son… I have no clue what I would do! But because Abraham trusted in God, he went through with what God told him to do. He got the fire, wood, knife, and even had Isaac bound and laying on the alter. At this point in history it was never recorded that God had brought anyone up from the dead, but because of Abraham's trust in God, according to Hebrews 11:17-19, Abraham knew that if God had him kill his son, He would bring him back from the dead. In Genesis 22:11 God had an angel stop Abrahm from sacrificing Isaac and ended up blessing Abraham for trusting Him and putting Him first! Abraham was in perfect peace when something that seemed bad came up, and trusted in God. You can too!
How CAN we stay focused on Him?
If you're anything like me (McKenzie) it’s hard to stay focused on anything or anyone (Unless it’s a cute boy, that is… ). But because God loves us so much and wants us to stay focused on Him, He is more than willing to help us! So… How do we stay focused on God? Well like anything we try to stay focused on, we have to keep Him in front of us. Maybe you like to play baseball! I know, I do! Nomatter where you are on the field, you have to keep the ball in front of you, where you can see it. Just like in baseball, we as believers have to keep Jesus in front of us. A few ways we can do this is by attending church (whether that’s online or in person), talking to Him (You could talk to him outloud or just “in your head”. He will hear you no matter what!), or read the Bible and study it (If you don’t know where to start, try looking up a free Bible study on Pintrest. DM or email us if you need help finding one!). Now a lot of you probably already know that you can do these things to stay focused on God, on Sundays or in your quiet time, but what about at school, work, grocery store… Anywhere else really! Now like Natalee has already mentioned, God cares about other important things we do and knows we have to focus on them as well! So this verse doesn’t mean that we have to meditate and try to memorize a verse while our science teacher is trying to explain something to us. But try to focus on God outside of just Church and quiet time. At the beginning of the day before you go off to do stuff, take a verse from the Bible and write it on a note card (for example Isaiah 26:3!), then slip it in your back pocket or bag. That way throughout the day you could take it out and meditate on it when you get a minute or even just a couple seconds! Maybe you're the kind of person who likes to listen to music! Look up some Christion music and add it to your playlist to worship whenever you're cleaning. Another thing you could do is download or screenshot backgrounds off of Google or Pinterest that has a verse or something similar on it. That way you can be reminded of Jesus and his goodness towards you every time you get on your phone! These are just a few I thought off. There are tons of more ways we can stay focused on Jesus! If this is something you struggle with, pray and ask God to help you with it. He will!
Why was this verse put in the Bible?
God made the Bible so that we can learn and understand more about Him. Several times throughout the Bible, books are written for specific people. (ex: I & II Timothy were written by Paul as letters to Timothy.) The book of Isaiah was written by Isaiah the prophet. The Word never states who the book of Isaiah was written for, but we can still learn from it!
Though keeping full focus on our Lord may be difficult, that is what He has called us to do. Our God is always forgiving, and all He wants is for us to have a relationship with Him!
What should be our real goal for this New Year?
I know that every time the New Year rolls around everyone always has a list of things they want to work on in the upcoming year (examples: to eat healthier and to exercise more etc). Even though those goals are great, the only real thing that should be worked on this year is to not get caught up in the world and to stay focused on Jesus. Because He is the only one who can get us through this upcoming year and years to come!
We hope that reading this blog has helped you understand why God should be put first in your life or just reminded you of why he should always be first in everything you do:)