Day 2/ Week 2 - Stepping Up

Psalm 123:
I lift my eyes to You, the One enthroned in heaven.
Like a servant's eyes on His master's hand, like a servant girl's eyes on her mistress's hand,
so our eyes are on the Lord our God until He shows us favor.
Show us favor, Lord, Show us favor
for we've had more than enough contempt
We've had more than enough scorn from the arrogant and contempt from the proud.

This is a Psalm of lament with the focus on God Himself. Are your attentions focused on God Himself? Who ultimately wins your focus when you have to stare at your circumstances face to face? That focus from your eyes begins a chain reaction that affects every part of your body: heart, soul and mind.
Have you discovered a strong relationship in the concept of the statement Where I look impacts How I feel? Be specific in your answer.
I have noticed that when I stay focused on God and all of the promises I find in His word, it is very difficult for me to become depressed about this cancer or any other
circumstance in my life. When my focus leaves God, I can feel myself becoming depressed, and I have to put my eyes back on God!!!
Read Acts 3: 1 - 7 and describe where the encounter between Peter, John and the beggar took place.
Inside the walls, but outside the Gate Beautiful
Now, look carefully at Acts 3: 4. What did Peter say to the beggar? He said, "Look at us!"
Complete Acts 3: 5
"So the man gave them his attention expecting to get something from them."
At first the man was looking at them with half of his attention and half of his heart. He had done this day in and day out. Until Peter demanded his full attention, he was just going along with his daily business of feeling invisible. Once he looked at them, he also listened to them. This changed his expectation of them because it affected his entire being. With this example, Beth wants us to realize that Where we look and What we hear impacts What we feel and What we expect.
If you stay focused on your circumstances, you cannot focus on the promises of God. You listen to yourself focus on your circumstances; therefore, you do not feel the expectations of His promises. If you stay focused on the promises of God rather than your circumstances and you listen to the promises of God, then you begin to hope for and expect the promises of God to be fulfilled in your life.
In Psalm 123: 1, God is described as the One Enthroned in Heaven. This is the chief reason we are to fix our eyes on Him and stay focused.
Psalm 22: 3 - 4 tells us that God is enthroned as the Holy One
Psalm 29: 10 tells us that the Lord is enthroned as King forever
Psalm 99: 1 tells us that He sits enthroned between the cherubim
Psalm 113: 4 - 6 says the Lord our God is enthroned on High
We will all bow down to the enthroned One some day and worship Him forever.
List your foremost concerns that trouble you in this moment. Now, complete the following sentence.
Lord, You are the Holy One and You are alertly and lovingly enthroned over (now, write your concerns in this space)
Doesn't that put them in perspective?
Eugene Peterson states:
"We are not presented with a functional god who will help us out of jams or an entertainment god who will lighten our tedious hours. We are presented
with the God of exodus and Easter, the God of Sinai and Calvary. If we want to understand God, we must do it on His terms. If we want to see God the
way He really is, we must look to the place of authority - to Scripture and to Jesus Christ.
And do we really want it any other way? I don't think so. We would very soon become contemptuous of a god whom we could figure out like a puzzle or learn
to use like a tool. No, if God is worth our attention at all, He must be a God we can look up to - a God we must look up to....The moment we look up to God
(and not over Him, or down on Him) we are in the posture of servitude."
God deserves our full attention and our entire focus. The joy is that when we give it to Him, we are the ones that receive the rewards!!! No, I do not want to serve
a God that I can figure out. I would much rather live my life in the security of knowing He has already figured it all out for us!!!!
Have a wonderful and blessed day
Tiff