Jesus Is...

FOCUSED:
Jesus knew His purpose on earth and that is to do the will of God His Father. He never wasted time. He gives top priority to what God has intended for Him to do no matter how difficult it is. Thus He lived a focused and purposeful life.

^{John 4: 34} “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.


^{Luke 4:42-44} At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said,“I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

COMPASSIONATE:
Jesus loves people. He is compassionate to whomever He encounters. He is merciful towards the people who are socially unacceptable to society. And because of His compassion towards people, He was willing to lay down His life for them.

^John10:14-15 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 


^{John 8:2-11} At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
   But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
   At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”
    “No one, sir,” she said.
   “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”


 ^{Luke 5:27-32} After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus said to him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”
 Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

FAITHFUL:
He gives priority to relationships. He is faithful to His friends and loves them unconditionally. Regardless of how they failed Him, He never falters to forgive them and gives them a second chance. He never failed to accomplish what He had promised to do.

^{1 John 1:9} If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
^{John 15:13} Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

HUMBLE:
He serves people around Him. He healed the sick, performed miracles, preached in different towns and even washed His disciples feet.  He never imposed His authority to others but instead respected who are in authority. He was humble by obeying God even to the point of death.

^{John 13:3-5} Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist. After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

Don't Look Back

Lot, Abraham's nephew, was dwelling within the city walls of Sodom with his family. When God was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot and his family were warned to flee from the place in order for their lives to be spared.

Genesis 19:15-26 (NIV)  15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.”

16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the LORD was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, “Flee for your lives! Don’t look back, and don’t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!”

18 But Lot said to them, “No, my lords,b please!  19 Yourc servant has found favor in yourd eyes, and youe have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it—it is very small, isn’t it? Then my life will be spared.”

21He said to him, “Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.” (That is why the town was called Zoar.f)

23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the LORD rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah—from the LORD out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, including all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.    26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

New year comes and no doubt most of us have made different kinds of resolutions. Some resolve to loose weight, quit smoking while others resolve to get out of debt or promise to spend more time with family and friends. Nothing wrong with these as a matter of fact. Unfortunately, there are some of us, or even all of us have gone through episodes of regrets wallowing in self pity, wondering what could have been or what might have been if only... We are sometimes guilty of living in the past, recalling how happy we were those days and instead of facing the here and now we try to achieve the then and before trying to replicate that same moment so we could relive that same old feeling. Like most of us we get stuck. The same is true with sin, sure enough, we just can't stop committing the same mistake over and over again. Thus, we become a slave to it.  

In the bible it says...

Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NIV)¹⁰ Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.

It was never God's desire for us to live in the past nor to be a slave to sin. For misery and destruction accompany both. Just like Lot's wife, it should never have come to it if she never have looked back. To what reason? Did she loved that place too much or was she too attached that in her mind she could not accept its destruction? Did she not trust God that there was something better for them to dwell in?  

God intended for us to live a fruitful life. 

Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Let us not live in the past. Indeed, there were good and difficult times. But instead of looking back by burying ourselves into it, we should remember and reflect God's goodness and graciousness through it all. If it is that sin that we keep going back to, let us start resolving to sincerely repent and ask God for his help and intervention through His Holy Spirit. There is no way for us to do this alone but through constant prayer in humility before God, we will live the life God intended for us to live.