Just Keeping It Real: Where Is Your Focus?

God created each of us for His glory and wants us to grow closer to Him and be more like Him each day.

One of the most important things we can do to grow spiritually is to be truthful and open about where we are in each season. This post is about encouraging honest self-evaluation between you and God.

This process isn’t intended to discourage, but to help you understand yourself better and inspire you on to greater personal growth in the days, weeks, months and years to come.

“ANSWER ONLY TO YOURSELF. THIS IS BETWEEN YOU AND GOD.”

In your opinion, how close are you to God right now, with zero being you are freezing cold and far away, and ten being you are on fire and extremely close?
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Regarding closeness to God, where do you want to be one year from now?
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Are you currently moving at a pace to meet your goal one year from now?

What major decisions/adjustments do you need to make to help you grow?

Pray now that God will give you a renewed hunger and the grace to help you to seek Him more passionately and to grow spiritually this next week, month, and year. Ask Him to use you as a Bible study to springboard to a deeper and closer walk with him.

It can be very hard for us to “evaluate ourselves accurately.” When you and I are quizzed by others, it is human nature for us to highlight and exaggerate the good and minimize or deny what’s lacking:

Proverbs 21:2 Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord pondereth the hearts.

Proverbs 30:12 There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

Proverbs 20:6 Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?

Folks, the Apostle Paul was a prideful, self-righteous Pharisee, but after He was confronted with Jesus and the glory of God, he later called himself the chief of sinners:

1 Timothy 1:15
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

Many, many times our actions are a much better indication of where we are spiritually than our guesses and opinions.

Ask yourself honestly these questions:

1. How diligently do you seek and pursue a closer walk with God each day?
2. How much time and effort do you spend in His Word and in prayer each week?
3. Do you make an effort to remember and apply the Word of God after you hear it or do you usually walk away and forget it?
4. How quickly do you obey God when He tells you to do something.
5. When God reveals sin in your life, how quickly do you confess and repent of it?

If you knew that:
1. Jesus was coming back in three days, what sins would you confess and quickly get out of your life?
2. What commands would you obey between now and then?

Pray now for God to give you the grace to go ahead and do these things rather than putting them off any longer.

James 1:22
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.