{"id":1440,"date":"2020-11-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/?p=1440"},"modified":"2020-09-25T11:42:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-25T01:42:39","slug":"shun-unhealthy-self-focus-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/shun-unhealthy-self-focus-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Shun Unhealthy Self-Focus (5)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>God never commanded you to examine your emotions, experiences, or sins. What He did say is, <i>\u2018Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!\u2019<\/i> (John\u00a01:29<sup>\u00a0NASB<\/sup>) Victory over sin comes from focusing on Christ\u2014not beating yourself up! In the Old Testament the Israelites reached a place of despair. <\/p>\n<p>They\u2019d fasted and <i>\u2018afflicted\u2019<\/i> their souls, yet God ignored their efforts. They sought spiritual restoration in their own self-directed way, and God rejected it, saying:  <i>\u2018Is this the kind of fast I have chosen\u2026 for people to humble themselves\u2026 bowing one\u2019s head like a reed\u2026 in sackcloth and ashes? Is that\u2026 acceptable to the Lord?\u2019<\/i> Clearly, God is not pleased with the misery that comes from self-focus! He has a more effective way to liberate us. <\/p>\n<p>Rather than have us weighed down with remorse, He said: <i>\u2018Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice\u2026 set the oppressed free\u2026 break every yoke\u2026 share your food with the hungry\u2026 provide the poor wanderer with shelter\u2014when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not\u2026 turn away from your own flesh and blood?\u2019<\/i> (Isaiah\u00a058:6\u20137<sup>\u00a0NIV<\/sup>) <\/p>\n<p>God\u2019s way eliminates the \u2018paralysis of self-analysis\u2019 by commanding you to forget about yourself completely; to stop dwelling on your imperfections and get involved in the lives and needs of others. His four-point plan for overcoming your flesh is: <\/p>\n<p>(1) Acknowledge His grace and see yourself as \u2018righteous\u2019 in Christ. <\/p>\n<p>(2) Fix your eyes on Jesus. <\/p>\n<p>(3) Shun obsessive self-focus. <\/p>\n<p>(4) Serve God by serving others. <\/p>\n<p>When you do all these things, <i>\u2018Your light will rise in the darkness\u2026The Lord will guide\u2026 and\u2026 strengthen you.\u2019<\/i> (Isaiah\u00a058:10\u201311<sup>\u00a0NIV<\/sup>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God never commanded you to examine your emotions, experiences, or sins. What He did say is, \u2018Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!\u2019 (John\u00a01:29\u00a0NASB) Victory over sin comes from focusing on Christ\u2014not beating yourself up! In the Old Testament the Israelites reached a place of despair. They\u2019d fasted and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ucbmedia.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}