When I focus on my Father, I see His kindness and His justice in the way He tenderly deals with my failure and restores me. As I focus on Him, I begin to live out His values of kindness, justice and righteousness.
The means a person uses to focus on the Father is their spiritual pathway. These are wonderful entrances to His presence. Yet I must be careful not to make the entrance the end in itself.
In my previous post (below) I suggested that the cross makes foolishness of our spiritual pathways. Wherever our spiritual pathway takes us, we see God at work and we rejoice. Before we are tempted to focus on that pathway, we must remember the cross. No pathway will work without Jesus’ death, and the manner of Jesus’ death humbles any spiritual pathway.
The Lord’s words through Jeremiah 9 :23-24 bring perspective –
‘Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength
or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this:
that they have the understanding to know me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth,
for in these I delight,’
Focus on spiritual pathways focuses on methods. The approach can become the end when we systemise our method to help others. We can find a hardness setting in as we evaluate people’s ability to walk our path. Our Father’s delight in kindness helps maintain perspective.