Watch Your Focus Watch stand fast in the

Watch Your Focus Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong” 1 Corinthians 16: 13 NKJV

Watch Your Focus Jesus and the apostles exhort us to actively "watch"! We need to understand all that they meant and the wide-ranging implications. Our survival and salvation could depend on that understanding and action!

Watch Your Focus To watch, ” is translated to two Greek words ( gregoreuo and agrupneo ), which have similar meanings—to “stay awake” and to “be sleepless. ” They are usually meant in the metaphorical and spiritual sense—to be vigilant and on guard, fully awake, aware, alert and intently focused—with several applications and implications.

Watch Your Focus Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” Mark 13: 3537 What God? can take our focus away from

Watch Your Focus Scriptures with the verb “watch”—important scriptures that are often misunderstood, ignored and neglected. Jesus' Warns to "Watch“ Just What Do You Think He Means? Jesus then urged His disciples Matthew 24: 42 -43 -42 Watch therefore: for you know not what hour your Lord does come. 43 But know this, that if the manager of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. (AKJV) How important is it that we “watch”?

Watch Your Focus biblical command to watch is several times coupled with the command to pray. Watch Is as well as prayer important while we watch? Why

Watch Your Focus It is spiritual watching coupled with prayer that gives one the strength to survive temptations and difficult situations.

Watch Your Focus In Matthew 26: 37 -40 37 And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful and very heavy. 38 Then said he to them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even to death: tarry you here, and watch with me.

39 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as you will. 40 And he comes to the disciples, and finds them asleep, and said to Peter, What, could you not watch with me one hour? (AKJV) the meaning of “watch” is primarily physical. Jesus was chiding the disciples for not remaining awake during the hour preceding His arrest.

Watch Your Focus Matt. 26: 41 -But what Jesus next said to Peter had a deeper, spiritual meaning: “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing [i. e. , intentions are good], but the flesh [mere human willpower] is weak’ ”

Watch Your Focus Awake to righteousness, and do not sin” 1 Corinthians 15: 34 -Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame. (AKJV) Being awake is equated with righteousness and not sinning. Paul was writing to the church at Corinth, which shows that even true Christians can be spiritually asleep to varying degrees.

Watch Your Focus Paul also wrote: “And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13: 11) AKJV other words, the closer we draw to the second coming of Christ, the more urgent it is that we awake out of spiritual sleep!

If ever there was a time to pay attention and get prepared, it is now! Being spiritually prepared for the end of life should be our top priority.

Watch Your Focus Scripture: Matt. 25: 1 -13

Watch Your Focus Parable of the 10 virgins (Matthew 25: 1 -13) emphasizes staying spiritually prepared and ready. Keeping one’s lamp filled with oil represents staying close to God (read the word/keep your relationship with Him) and staying filled with the Holy Spirit (pray).

Jesus concluded the parable by saying, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming”

Watch Your Focus Watching means properly using our minds God gave us marvelous minds to use —to study, learn, observe, analyze, judge and think. Life is time. To waste time is to waste life. Many of us become mentally lazy—wasting a tragic amount of time on the trivial and temporal, mundane and materialistic. Many squander countless hours vegetating in front of their TV or computer seeking only to be entertained.

Watch Your Focus We need to study to show ourselves approved a workman that needs not to be ashamed. Rightly dividing the word of truth. II Tim. 2: 15 (AKJV) You see, God wants His people to zealously read and study, to think and meditate. He wants us to be well-informed regarding the cultural and spiritual issues and events of our time.

The bible should be our filter by which we can accurately perceive and judge all other information. It enables us to develop a godly worldview—the framework and foundation by which we can accurately interpret all that is going on in the world.

Watch Your Focus We know our focus should be on God and spending time in His word. Jesus was born, died, rose and coming back again. We should be ready, watching & praying. Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; and yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching ” (Luke 12: 35 -36) AKJV

Jesus concluded His message by saying, Luke 12: 40 “Be you therefore ready also: for the Son of man comes at an hour when you think not. ” AKJV

Watch Your Focus Next Bible Study -Jan 6, 2016 God’s Plan through New Eyes-Hab. 2: 1 -3

Resources: Jesus' Warning to "Watch“; Just What Did He Mean? Jan 29 2011 “The Good News”; Don Hooser