Hebrews 12:1-2: Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now He is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.

Have you ever tried to talk with someone in a room that is filled with other people conversing? Restaurants often seem to enjoy playing music at a very uncomfortable level. Consequently, when you have loud music and even louder voices in a closed room, it can become very distracting. I suppose you could stand up and shout for everyone to be quiet and ask the restaurant manager to turn off the music, but you might be asked to leave. Except for walking out of the loud room, I suppose the only other option at this point is to remain focused on the person you’re talking with while turning a “deaf ear” to the other voices and noises.

As we seek to learn more about Jesus and to please Him with our lives, we will have to overcome the distractions of Satan. You might be able to walk out of a noisy restaurant, but you can’t run away from the distractions of Satan. The only way to overcome distractions is to learn the principle of being focused on Jesus while living in a world filled with spiritual distractions. Our flesh nature, even as Christians, can cause us to fall prey to distractions from time to time. So we must train ourselves to remain focused on Christ no matter what cries out for our attention.

We must guard our hearts when focusing on Jesus so that we don’t allow fear to overcome our faith. If we allow this to happen, we will take our spiritual eyes off of Jesus and drown in our unbelief. Which would have been easier for Jesus, giving Simon the power to walk on water, or silencing the storm for Simon? You may be asking what that question has to do with Simon being distracted. Why is it? Simon had the faith in Jesus to walk on water, which is humanly impossible, but didn’t have the faith that Jesus could have authority over the storm? Perhaps we can learn a very valuable lesson from Simon’s story. It’s easier to walk by faith when there are no storms or threats that oppose us while we’re walking by faith. However, if our faith can’t stand up to the fire of a trial, then what good is our faith?

This story perfectly illustrates just how important it is for Christians to maintain our spiritual focus on Jesus, especially when storms arise. We must keep our eyes on Jesus in order to continue walking above the weight and the sins of this world. We must ask ourselves one question, as it pertains to maintaining focus by overcoming distractions. Why doesn’t Satan want us to keep our eyes on Jesus? He knows when Christians have their complete focus and heart’s attention on Jesus, he has no power over them in which to stop them from reaching Jesus. Therefore, if you struggle with “spiritual attention disorder,” and you allow fear to rule your walk and cause you to lose focus, then you must learn how to die to the flesh nature. Dying to the old nature, which vies for your attention, is a day-to-day process, but it is an obtainable goal. This is the victory that overcomes the world even our faith. Satan couldn’t stop us from coming to faith in Christ because Christ originated our salvation, so he attempts to distract us from walking by faith so that he might cause us to go back into unbelief.  —submitted by Pastor Asa Dockery, US