I read an article the other day about how we should focus on Jesus and not others.  Makes sense right?  All too often we get caught up in what others are doing wrong instead of focusing on what we need to do right.  There is a time and a place to be vocal Christian.  We called to witness to others.  When witnessing turns into judgment is where we run into problems.  Every one of us is guilty of passing judgment against another Christian at some point.  There is no way around it.  All of us have the opinion of what we are doing is better than what others are doing.  As humans, we measure sin instead of treating all sin the same.

So in the article, there was a conversation between a pastor and a member of the Church.  The Church member confronted the pastor and told him that they were no longer going to attend his Church.  The pastor asked why they were leaving.  The parishioner told the pastor that they were tired of surrounding themselves with people that kept on sinning.  They pointed out the drug user in the front row.  Next, they commented on all of the single mom's filling up the pews.  By the time they got to the back row, they were talking about the gay man that attending the service as well.

In response to the woman's comments, the pastor asked her to do one thing for him.  Before the woman quit attending his Church, he asked her to complete an exercise.  “Take this full cup of water and walk around the sanctuary three times without spilling a drop.”  Not sure as to why the pastor asked her to do this, she cautiously agreed.

All you need to do is focus on Jesus.

The woman grabbed a glass of water and made sure that it was full to the top.  As she walked around the sanctuary, she kept a close eye on the cup of water.  Her steps were slow and precise.  She never took her eyes completely off of the glass of water at all.  After the first lap, she made it around without spilling a drop of water.  As she continued her second and third lap, she intensively kept her focus on the water.  After making it around the sanctuary three times, she stopped at the pastor.

“I made it around the sanctuary three times without spilling a drop of water.  Why have you asked me to do this?”

The pastor said, “When we keep our focus on Jesus, we do not focus on anything else around us.”

Our focus on Jesus makes us closer to him.

John 4:14 NASB but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

In the example I gave you, Jesus is the water.  Whoever seeks Jesus will never thirst, but have eternal life.  We need to put our focus on Jesus, not other people.  Just like the lady in the story, our eyes should always have Jesus at the center of our attention.  When we focus on Jesus, we do not have time to focus on other people.  Instead of complaining and judging others, we set our eyes on the cross and the salvation offered by Jesus.