Where to Focus? #2

Ron Simkins – August 26, 2025 2 Comments

This week we get part 2 of Where to Focus? from Ron Simkins. Ron emphasizes: “focusing on the WHO before moving on to the WHERE/WHAT…makes for growth individually and as a community of Jesus followers.” May we experience God’s loving presence in our lives, transforming us to become the people we are made to be, like Jesus!
–Melissa Logsdon, NCF Associate Pastor 

Last month, I maintained that we reach character goals much better by focusing first on inviting more of God’s presence than by focusing first on improving the character trait itself. WHO to focus on precedes WHERE/WHAT to Focus on. In Galatians 5:22-24, Paul elucidates Jesus’ instruction that we stay connected to the “vine” (John 15:5) by promising us that in doing so we will allow the “fruit” of more godly character to grow— love (agape/hesed—stubborn commitment), joy, peace (shalom), patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness (trust/trustworthiness), gentleness (tameness/responsiveness), and self-control.

In Romans 12, we have a similar promise and challenge that is spelled out in more detail. Paul begins the section on practical living as Jesus followers with the following introduction:

Therefore, I am begging you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to present your bodies as sacrifices – living, holy and pleasing to God — this is your most reasonable way of serving God. {2} Do not continue conforming any longer to the pattern of this present culture, but continue being transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to prove by continual testing what God’s will is—(what is) good, pleasing and mature” (Romans 12:1-2—my translation emphasizing the ongoing nature of the Greek present tenses).

Again, the emphasis is on beginning by focusing on the WHO before moving on to the WHERE/WHAT that makes for growth individually and as a community of Jesus followers. We are told that our cultural norms will be our default unless we daily offer ourselves before God ready to bodily respond to God’s transforming presence in our lives.

The rest of the chapter then gives us illustrations of the various ways we will grow individually, and as a community, if we daily practice presenting ourselves as ready to learn what is good, what pleases God, and what makes us more fully human in the image of God. Here are some of the growth patterns described in the rest of Romans 12.

1. Those of us prone to do so won’t think more highly of ourselves than we should. “Better than,” or, “more important than” is not a work of the Holy Spirit (12:3)
2. The community will be built up as the differing gifts God gives through us bless others in the community of faith. This will create the kind of “oneness” that God alone can create among humans (12:4-8).
3. Then we are given descriptions of the various aspects of “love/agape/hesed.” Agape in the New Testament, and hesed in the Old Testament, are probably better translated into English as “stubborn covenanted commitment to wanting and doing good for others” than as “love.” Both Hebrew and Greek had other words that are more general like our English word “love.” It is the stubborn covenant commitment to want and do good toward others that will grow as we daily present ourselves to God as willing learners.

Paul goes ahead to demonstrate some of what this stubborn covenant commitment to wanting and acting toward good for others will look like. It will be:

• sincere/authentic – 12:9
• marked by hating evil and clinging to good – 12:9
• expressed with family friendship and genuine honoring – 12:10
• will not let the intensity of our serving wane – 12:11
• we will continue to wait expectantly (hope) in God’s promised future while being patient and prayerful in the brokenness and bentness of the present age-12:12
• we will keep sharing with those lacking basic necessities – 12:13
• we will be hospitable – 12:13
• God will help us want God’s good even for those who do evil toward us—12:14
• we will be delighted for those experiencing good times and genuinely caring for those experiencing hard times—12:15
• harmony with others will grow in us—2:16
• we will not let social class pride harm our relationships with one another; nor any other kind of pride/conceit—12:16
• we won’t try to get even when others hurt us, but will leave how justice is finally carried out in God’s hands rather than taking it into our own—12:17-21.

This kind of character growth is certainly not the cultural default. And, it never comes instantly for individuals nor for our communities of Jesus followers. However, it is the growth process that occurs when we daily open ourselves to more and more of God’s presence. God’s presence in and with us day by day allows God to transform us into more and more genuine humanness, into more and more imaging Jesus, who is the first human fully in the image of God.
–Ron Simkins, NCF Pastor Emeritus