CHOOSE - Diminish Your Distractions 1

Does your life feel stuck in place, even though you want to move forward? Unmoving and unsure of God's plan for your future?

Don't despair. Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah explains why this happens and how you can regain your momentum by refocusing your vision. From the series Forward, here's David to introduce his message, Choose, Diminish Your Distractions. Well friends, we are working our way through this whole process we call Forward, discovering God's presence and purpose in your tomorrow. Based on a book that was released just a few days ago, this brand new project is our attempt to help us get unstuck and get back on the road toward progress and success according to God's standard.

Success according to the standard of God is the full, complete, absolute, total accomplishment of God's will in your life. What God wants you to do and you're doing it. During the pandemic, many of us kind of had to stop some things. We had to back up.

We had to quit doing some of the things that we were doing simply because of the health concerns. Now as we start to pull out of that, how do we get started again? In fact, for many of us, how do we really get momentum in our life? So many people you and I know end up living in the past, living life through the rearview mirror instead of through the windshield that is so much bigger. And our desire during this series is to encourage you and strengthen you and motivate you to move forward.

So far we've talked about dreaming and praying, but right now we need to figure out how to diminish our distractions and choose. Just months before America entered World War II, a young Marine from Ohio named Walter Osipoff boarded a DC-2 transport plane. He and several other Marines took off on a routine parachute jumping exercise as pilot Harry Johnson headed aloft into a beautiful blue San Diego sky. Nine men jumped from the plane and then disaster struck. Osipoff was standing near the jump door when his ripcord caught on something and deployed. His chute flew open and he shot from the plane like a rocket hitting the side of the aircraft. The impact broke two of his ribs, fractured three vertebrae, and as Osipoff plunged toward the ground, he was yanked to a stop and then jerked backward. His parachute had wrapped around the plane's wheel and the hapless Marine found himself dangling 15 feet below the plane's tail. He was literally hanging by a thread.

And it gets worse. The chute's chest strap and one leg harness had broken. So Osipoff was dangling in midair upside down suspended by a single strap which had slipped down to his ankle. His weight put tremendous pressure on the plane and Johnson was struggling to keep from nose diving.

Furthermore, Johnson had no radio contact and the other men in the plane couldn't reach their buddy. The dangling Marine, injured and terrified, kept his eyes squeezed shut against the rushing wind. Blood dripped from his helmet. He was stuck and he was facing certain death.

I'll tell you the end of the story later, but for now I want to imagine how helpless Walter Osipoff felt. I mean, you may not have dangled from an airplane, but you have, like all of us, felt like your life was turned upside down. Maybe you felt like you were at the end of your rope, stretched to the breaking point or stuck in a situation you couldn't escape.

It's not usually as dramatic as what our Marine friend experienced, but feeling powerless to change anything is real and it can keep you frozen in place. Authors call it writer's block. Athletes call it a slump. Economists call it stagnation. Pastors call it burnout. Swimmers call it treading water. Off-roaders call it spinning their wheels and retailers call it sluggishness. Scientists call it inertia.

Retirees call it every day is Saturday syndrome. Sailors call it the doldrums. Certain points in life you'll feel incapacitated and stuck, unable to gain forward momentum. Some of the greatest characters in the Bible were immobilized for a time. Moses was stuck on the backside of the desert for years, unaware of God's future for him.

Naomi was trapped in Moab after the death of her husband and her sons. Peter was caught in a dark depressive cycle on the Saturday before Easter. The apostle John was exiled on the island of Patmos, lonely and unable to continue his ministry, or so he thought. So if you feel stuck by circumstances or by your own lethargy, that's not where God wants you to stay. We all have temporary phases in life where we recalibrate, recover, regain our bearings.

We start going forward again. Because you see, you were created for an ever-fruitful, flourishing, thriving life according to Jesus. John 10.10 put it this way, I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. In 1 Corinthians 15.58, the apostle Paul proclaimed, therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. You can't be stuck and live abundantly at the same time. You can't be despondent while keeping your spiritual fervor and God's service. You can't be immobilized and give yourself fully to the work of the Lord.

So how do you get free of the sandbar and back to sailing in open water? I have some thoughts I'd like to suggest to you. First of all, consider what's best. Start by accepting the fact that everything is not equally important. Almost every adult struggles with this today. We become so distracted by molehills that we can't charge up the mountain.

But we have to remember, not every activity is vital. Not every situation is eternal. In his parable of the sower, Jesus said, now he who received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the word. And the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. Can you relate to this?

I can. I mean the Lord has sown the seed of his word into our hearts, but it's not as productive or fruitful as he wants. So his work in and through us is choked by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. Oftentimes, our inability to move forward is due to a lack of priorities. We fail to even consider that some things are more important than others. Without prioritizing your life, you just can't sort through the cares of this world. You become paralyzed by burdens and business and busyness. In trying to do everything, you end up doing nothing.

This paralysis by analysis can devastate your morale and your emotional health. Greg McCowan in his book, Essentialism, wrote these words. The word priority came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular. It meant the very first of prior things. It stayed singular for the next 500 years. Only in the 1900s did we pluralize the term and then started talking about priorities. Illogically, we reasoned that by changing the word, we could bend reality. Somehow, we would now be able to have multiple first things. People and companies routinely try to do just that.

One leader told me of his experience in a company that talked of prior one, prior two, prior three, prior four, and prior five. This gave the impression of many things being the priority, but actually, nothing was. You have to learn to consider what's best. Not everything is as important as everything else. If you're going to diminish your distractions, you're going to have to come up with your priorities. Secondly, clarify what's best. Once you've understood the significance of priorities, the next step to getting unstuck is to actually determine the most important things in your life. To do that, you need the clarity to know what's best. Start by asking what's most important to God. What isn't as important to him? What do you need to focus on in your life and what can you start deleting?

To generate momentum, evaluate your activities. Delete things of less importance to keep things of greater worth. I can't give you an itemized list of what should be important to you, but in Mark chapter 12, Jesus gave us three principles that should be central to everyone's life. Let me read that passage. The first of all the commandments is, here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment, and the second, like it, is this. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Jesus boiled down the contents of the entire Old Testament into one overarching, overwhelming priority, and that priority is love. He ascribed to that priority three applications.

Without understanding this, it's impossible to move forward. Love, as God defines love, is life's ultimate priority. First is the priority of loving God.

Deuteronomy 6 says it this way. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and Jesus quoted that in Mark chapter 12. More than anything else, this is what we're made to do. This is what we're made for, a passionate practical embracing of God and all of his attributes, all of his virtues, and all of his grace, embracing him with an overflowing heart of burning devotion and passion in our lives.

That affects everything else we do, everything we say, everything we think. So number one, your priority should, first of all, be to love God with all your heart. You really can't go anywhere until you go there, because that's the ultimate goal of every Christian. But Jesus answered the question that was posed to him by giving more than he was asked. Jesus said, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Within the same priority of love, there's a second application. We're to love our neighbors, and believe it or not, we have 7.7 billion of them.

We can't know or personally care for each of them, but the Lord knows exactly how to lead us to those that we need to serve. You see, loving others is sharing the compassion of Christ with the people around you. The Bible says, Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. Love does not harm a neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

And Paul wrote, for all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So I was finishing this series of messages. Our world was rocked by the coronavirus pandemic. You know the details of the horrors and devastation caused by this plague. We're all living through it, and we have all been affected by it.

As in all calamities and tragedies, we've had choices to make. The people of our congregation chose to use this pandemic as an opportunity to love our neighbors. So with the leadership of one of our pastors, David St. John, we began providing food for people in our community.

Each week we distributed over 50,000 pounds of food. We fed 1,000 families with basic food, living essentials, a gallon of milk each. More than 60 of our fellow believers gathered every Friday, put on their masks and their gloves, put this gift of love in the trunks of cars as people in need drove through our campus. Hundreds of emails, letters and phone calls helped us realize what this meant to the recipients. Perhaps the greatest benefit of this initiative was just the wild joy I witnessed in the lives of the people who were doing the giving.

It truly is more blessed to give than to receive. And loving your neighbor is not something you feel. Loving your neighbor is something that you do.

For as James 2.8 says, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scriptures, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. If you do that, he said, you do well. But keeping priorities correctly aligned is a daily challenge. The first step is knowing what's at the top of the list.

Once that's settled, everything else begins to fall into place. What comes first is clear, love God. And next is to love others. And finally, and this will surprise some of you, to love yourselves.

Notice again how Jesus stated this commandment. He said, you shall love your neighbor as you love yourself. That means it's okay to love ourselves. In fact, we are commanded to love ourselves. Now we have to be careful here because the devil always tries to turn self-love into selfishness and ego and low and high self-esteem and conceit and haughtiness and self-importance and all the other things that make up for sinful narcissism.

I'm not recommending any of these. On the other hand, the apostle Paul said, therefore take heed to yourself and to all the flock. Let me paraphrase that. Take heed to yourselves and to everyone else assigned by God to your care. If you don't take care of yourself, you can't take care of others. If you become fatigued and irritable, you can't uplift others. If you don't pay attention to your diet and exercise, you'll lose the strength you need to fulfill God's will. You have a God-given responsibility to take care of yourself. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Your personality is the means by which God touches others.

If you get in a rut, you'll pull others down into it with you, but when you have your priority, love in its right place and you understand the three applications, things have a way of moving forward. You have to take care of yourself. I remember as a young pastor walking into the office of a chiropractor, and there was a note on the wall, and this is what it said, when you wear out this body, then where will you live? We only get one body.

We don't get a new one. We don't get a do-over, so we have to take care of what God has given us. Consider what's best and clarify what's best, and then of course you have to choose what's best. Once you've clarified what is God's best in your life, the next thing you need to do is actually choose those priorities. You need to make intentional, planned decisions that elevate what is best and remove what is just good. The older you get, the more you'll find out that your choices are not between good and bad, but they're between good and best, and sometimes they almost seem like they're between best and best.

The choices become different. As Moses was dying, he told his successor, Joshua, be strong and of a good courage for you must go with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. The Lord, he's the one who goes before you. He will be with you.

He will not leave you nor forsake you. Do not fear nor be dismayed. In other words, once you establish your priorities, find the courage to say no to some things and yes to some other things, and let's just look at two areas where this courage is required. First of all, we all need the courage to embrace our limitations.

Do you have any of those? We all do, don't we? We're all aware of them, maybe specifically more aware of them now than we've ever been because of the environment in which we find ourselves. Beware of living in denial. To move forward, you have to be realistic. Progress comes by embracing your God-given limits.

I call them God-given. Some limits have to do with your age or stage in life. I used to do a lot of running for exercise.

Now my knees won't allow me to do that, so I have to accept that limitation and find other ways to get the exercise that I need. Some of your limitations have to do with the gifts God has given you or the location where he's placed you. Maybe you battle a handicap or a chronic illness or you're a caregiver for someone who does. Maybe you have a dysfunctional family member or you live in a dangerous area.

You might be on a fixed income or maybe you can't afford to go to college or your job is being phased out. Whatever your limitations, accept them. Don't use them as an excuse for not doing what God assigns you to do.

Here's something that will shock you. Even the Lord Jesus Christ had limitations. As Almighty God, of course, he had no limitations. He was and is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving. Not even the entire universe can contain him.

His power, might, grace, holiness and justice are limitless, boundless and measureless. But when the Son of God entered the human race in Bethlehem, he was confined within an animal's feeding trough. He grew up in a small hillside town. He did no recorded miracles for the first 30 years of his life and he lived in submission to his parents. When Jesus began his ministry, he didn't fly around like an angel from one preaching assignment to another. He didn't even have a horse or donkey, except on one known occasion.

He said in Matthew 8-20, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. Jesus' area of ministry during the whole time he was on this earth was limited to a little strip of land along the Mediterranean and he never visited the great cities of his day. Athens, Rome, Milan, Alexandria, Carthage. He had a limited education, a limited income and a limited time for his work, only three years. Oh, and his nation wasn't free.

It was occupied by Roman soldiers. The limitless Son of God was financially, geographically, chronologically, politically and physically limited. And then his limitations became far more stringent. On the cross, he became so limited by the nails in his hands and feet, he was unable to wipe the blood from his eyes or scatter the flies from his face. Yet his limitations worked for the advantages of the whole world.

Imagine that. Limitations should never become excuses for staying where you are. Your priorities are determined by the gifts God has given you, your stage in life, your personal shortcomings.

Doesn't the Bible say something about that? It says your strength is made perfect in weakness. Embrace your limitations. Realize you can't do everything.

Even the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of his life said to the Father, I have finished the work that you gave me to do. Not all the work there is to do, the work that you gave me to do. All of us have limitations. And before we can move forward, before we can see this principle take hold in our lives, we have to acknowledge that we're not Superman. We don't have everything everybody else has. God has given us a certain set of abilities and giftedness, and in one way or another, those things limit us. Well, you know, it is a really good thing to realize that you haven't been called to do everything, but that you have been called to do something. And if we get out of the everything circle and back into the something circle, we can really make a difference.

All of us have to deal with that, as you know. I'm David Jeremiah, and I'll see you right here tomorrow. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's current teaching series, Forward, please visit our website where you'll also find two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org. That's davidjeremiah.org. When you do, be sure to ask for your copy of David's powerful new book, Forward, Discovering God's Presence and Purpose in Your Tomorrow. It's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard Version, the New International Version, and the New King James Version.

All are available in a variety of handsome cover options. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hooke Fleet. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series Forward. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.