◄ Undivided Attention ►

Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God" (Deut. 8:11).

Our Father would be free to favor us with far more of His riches in Christ Jesus if we would keep more in mind that grace is unmerited favor - so that "He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy" (Rom. 9:23).

"It seems so natural, when one is surrounded with blessings, and thus sensible of being an object of divine favor, that the eye is turned from God to oneself; for when God is before one, self gets no place, though there be the deepest awareness of His favor.

"Hence it is the saint who is the object of the greatest favor who needs to be on his guard, that he allow not his eye to rest on himself where the favors are sent, but on God from whom they come. If his eye turns to himself because of the favor, then the favor has been the means of turning his heart from God to a mere gift of His."

"If there be a growing up into the measure of the stature of Christ, there must be a conscious refusal of that which would tend to revive or invigorate the old nature. The saint is not only a new creature to grow into the likeness of the Lord Jesus, but he has to watch and beware lest the things he has to do with should in any way minister to another will in him, which would divert him from God to himself. Self is the circle and center of man's mind in his fallen state; but when Christ is formed in the soul, God is the center and source of everything." -J.B.S.

"For we . . . worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh" (Phil. 3:3).