Why Attention Is More Important Than Activity

CONSECRATE Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  HEAR 1 John 3:1–3 (ESV) See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.  CONSIDER So much has been made over the years of the distinction between being and doing. You’ve heard it. “We are human beings,” goes the cliché, “not human doings.” We must learn to “be” before we “do.” I’m going to be frank. This distinction is meaningless. It falls into the category of sounds good but what in the world does it mean? I mean, can you articulate it for me? Okay, I won’t just criticize without offering an alternative. The alternative is in today’s text. Rather than “being” and “doing,” life comes down to “beholding” and “becoming.” Allow me to develop this thought. The first word of today’s text, “See,” is translated best in the King James Version: “Behold.” To behold something or someone is an older, beautiful word that carries more weight and communicates far more than to see with the naked eye. It means to perceive something with the totality of one’s attention. It means to see past the surface appearance and into the very essence of reality. “Behold” gets used in some important places in Scripture, sometimes on the lips of angelic beings, signaling the presence of God and pointing to impending divine activity or revelation. I remember a song called “Behold What Manner of Love” that carries today’s opening verse in these words: “Behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us, that we should be called the [children] of God.”1 This is not a nice turn of phrase. It is not a platitude. It is not a nice idea or a concept or a Hallmark-card sentiment. By the supernatural strength of the Holy Spirit, John is calling us to behold this groundbreaking gospel truth. This love of God our Father is an incomprehensible reality. It can’t even be revealed to us by flesh and blood. This kind of truth must be winged into the depths of our being by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul prays for this very thing to occur. Check this out: For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (3:14–19) Paul speaks of a profoundly supernatural activity here. He prays for us to behold because the outcome of beholding is becoming. We become like whom we behold—in this instance, “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” Would you be willing to dwell in this text for the next several days? Even now, as an act of devotion, would you be willing to copy it down on paper with a pencil or pen? Linger with the words. Speak them aloud. Let’s revisit the end of today’s text: “But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 John 3:2–3 ESV). Did you see the connection? Beholding leads to becoming: “We shall be like him.” We can’t “do” our way into being like him. Nor can we “be” our way into being like him. We can behold him and participate in the Holy Spirit’s work of making us become like him. One more for the road today:  “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces [behold] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:17–18).  Pray for the Spirit to make me a beholder today, and I will pray the same for you. This life we seek does not come from accelerated activity. It is the fruit of attentive abandonment to Jesus. PRAY Lord Jesus, teach me this way of beholding, of seeing beyond sight and hearing beyond sound. I will to give you my full and complete attention, but I can behold only by the gift of your Spirit. And I can become like you only by the gift of your Spirit. Lead me in this way. I pray in your name, Jesus. Amen.