Single-Mindedness

Dear Worshipers,

I have a question for you as we begin to tune our hearts this week. Are you single-minded? That term means different things to different people so let me explain before you answer.

I am asking you if there is one thing that dominates your mind. I am asking if there is one pursuit that focuses all others. I am asking if there is one great purpose that influences every decision.

Do you have a consuming passion? Is there one thing that is always one your mind? When you have a minute to daydream, what is the first thing that your mind trails off to? I think the best way to ask it is “What do you think about when you are not thinking about anything else?”

I thought I was, singel-minded that is. At least most of the time, when I was not being selfish. Then the Lord decided to show me otherwise. He did it through a missionary, or rather a few.

I was sitting innocently taking in yet another powerful message at our Missions Conference last week when the Lord pierced my heart. Rev. Andy Gardner, missionary to Guinea, was addressing the good crowd gathered for our closing rally at Jack Roberts Park under the tent. He was sharing with us the need for us a have a thirst for God, likening it to that which is cultivated through Ramadan in the heart of a Muslim, that period where they do not eat or drink or even swallow their own spit from dawn to dusk. The point is to make them aware of their need of God.

He commented that a thirsty person has one thing on their mind. The statement that was made was something like, “God may use something you are struggling with to cultivate single-mindedness.” When he said that, the Spirit promoted me to consider a struggle I am currently facing with this possibility in mind.

As I pondered that I realized that I am not single-minded. If I were, I do not think I would even be facing the struggle. So, in a sense the struggle itself belies the lack of single-mindedness of which I am guilty.

Are you facing a trial or a temptation? Have you considered it is light of this truth? Read these words from James 1:2-8.

2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 5If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

Dear friends, let us allow God to use all that we face to give us a single-mindedness. More on what should be on that mind next week.

In Christ,

Pastor Scott