Twelve Wisdom Principles on "Focus"

Focus determines mastery:

• Anything that has the ability to keep your attention has mastered you.

• Any significant progress toward the completion of your Assignment will require your every thought, your every cent, every hour of your life.

1. Your focus determines your energy:

• Example....Fasting...takes energy and determination.

• Long term 'prayer directives'...takes determination. Your flesh, the cares of this world, the enemy etc. will try to drain your energy.

• So having 'determined focus' is key to your energy!

1. What you look at the longest becomes the strongest in your life:

• The Apostle Paul focused on his future. (Phil. 3:13-14)..."Brethen, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

1. Broken focus creates insecurity and instability in everything around you:

• (James 1:8)..."A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."

1. Only focused FAITH can produce miracles from the hand of God:

• (James 1:6-7)..."But let him ask in faith, not wavering. For he that wavers' is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."

1. Sight affects desire:

• What you keep looking upon, you eventually pursue.

• (Lam. 3:51)..."Mine eye affecteth mine heart..."

• (Deut. 11:18)..."Therefore shall ye lay up these my words in your heart and in your soul, and bind them for a sign upon your hand, that they may be as frontlets between your eyes."

1. Focusing on the Word of God daily is necessary to complete your Assignment properly:

• (Joshua 1:8)..."This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."

1. Focusing, hearing, and speaking the Word of God continuously makes you invincible:

• (Deut. 11:25)..."There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as He hath said unto you."

• Listen to CD's, tapes etc. daily washes your mind, purges your heart, and harnesses your focus!

1. Focus has reward:

• (Deut. 11:21-24a)..."That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth. For if ye shall diligently keep all these commandments which I command you, to do them, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to cleave unto him; Then will the Lord drive out all these nations from before you, and ye shall possess greater nations and mightier than yourselves. Every place whereon the sole of your feet shall tread shall be yours."

1. What you keep seeing determines your focus:

• (Psalms 101:3)...."I will set no wicked think before my eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me."

1. Your enemy is anyone who breaks your focus from a God-given Assignment.

2. Your friend is anyone who helps keep you focused on the instructions of God for your life.

Six Keys to PROTECTING Your Focus

1. Recognize that broken focus destroys your dreams:

• It creates an unending parade of tragedies and disasters in your life.

1. Take personal responsibility;

• Be the gatekeeper for your eyes, ears, and heart. Nobody else can fully protect you.

• You must be protected by God, as you yield yourself to Him.

1. Control the music and teaching that enter your ears:

• What you hear determines what you feel.

• What you hear determines what you fear.

1. Keep continuous praise on your lips and throughout your home:

2. Starve wrong friendships:

3. Pursue and permit only relationships that increase your focus on your Assignment: