Keith Battle - Life's Greatest Battles: Focus and Substance Abuse

In part one of this series, we discussed the greatest battle in life: the battle for sexual purity. I mean, that’s a hard battle—it’s really difficult. I gave several points to emphasize that I want to reflect on today. You know, you have to run from temptation and run towards marriage. I think if you keep that in mind—like some of you are engaged, but you’re still engaging—you should consider that if you’re not married and you’re having sex, that’s a violation. It’s a violation. Amen, amen, amen! So since you’re planning to get married, why don’t you just go ahead and get married? You can do a ceremony later, just so you don’t have to keep feeling shame over it. Just do it God’s way; it won’t bother you. I’m telling you, I’ve never had to repent when I make love to my wife. I just go right to sleep. Amen! It’s really a wonderful thing when you do it the right way. Amen!

See, when you’re a Christian man, there’s a distinction between a Christian man and a non-Christian man—a man who is not following Jesus and a man who is following Jesus. Both men are tempted in the exact same way; both have the same flesh. I know that when we are in the flesh, we see boobs and booties just like everybody else—that’s a fact! You should have told your mother before you came. Now I can’t, I can’t put a suit on you as a preface to all this. Yeah, he’s likely to just say it, just so I’m saying.

When you’re weak, the same temptation happens to a man who’s following the Lord as to a man who is not. The same temptation triggers the same way, tempted in the same manner. The difference is if a man who knows the Lord acts out on the temptation, versus a man who doesn’t know the Lord acting out on temptation. The results will be different; how they feel about it afterward will be totally different. The non-saved man can brag about it: «You know what I did? I did what I did!» The unsaved man, on the other hand, has to keep it a secret. That’s messed up! When you do what you’re trying to do, you can’t even brag about it because you’re broken over it. The shame that comes with it—God made it that way because He didn’t want us following Him while trying to follow our private parts at the same time. So, He makes it so that when we mess up, we don’t feel great about it; we feel broken and ashamed.

You know how much time it takes to live in sexual sin? That’s like having another job! The time it takes to set up sex, the time it takes to groom, the time it takes to hide, the time it takes to cover it up—it’s all like a job. Imagine how much more you could get done with your life for good if that wasn’t a part of it. Anyway, as you can see, even if you weren’t here last week, this is how quiet it was last week.

Let me talk about something a little easier today. We’re going to talk about focus and substance abuse. See, now people that don’t have a problem with drugs and alcohol—I thank you for that—talk about them, so I’m going to try to tackle both subjects.

Talking about focus, it’s very difficult to not get distracted in life. In fact, I’m going to talk about focus first, then I’ll discuss substance abuse or alcohol abuse. When it comes to focus, I want you to write down the answer to this question. You’re not going to write down the question itself, but write down the answer to this question: What is your primary objective? I want you to go deeper spiritually with me. My primary objective is to love God, but I want you to go beyond that—to what you’re trying to achieve in your life. What’s next? What’s on your list? Do you want to buy a house? Do you want to start a business? Do you want to write a book? Do you want to get certification or some kind of training? Do you want to go back to school? Do you want to get married? What’s your primary objective? Do you want to lose weight?

Here’s the thing: I don’t want you to write down multiple things; write down one thing. Let me show you why it’s important. Most people who are writing right now, or typing—maybe out of habit—tend to list multiple things, but I want to tell you something: it’s always easier to focus on one thing than it is to juggle multiple things. One of the reasons why we don’t get anything done is that we’re not focused on just one thing. That’s what I would call your primary objective. For me right now, my primary objective is to finish the book I’m writing.

So, this is the target. Whenever you have a target you’re trying to hit, the problem is never with the target because the target is not moving. When someone goes to a range and shoots at a target, the key is sight alignment—not moving. The reason why the target gets missed is that my focus is off and my hand is moving. When you get distracted, you start moving away from the target.