Are there tasks in your life that you know you should be completing, however you constantly find yourself putting them off? Distractions can be subtle in nature, and they can play a major role in a person being disobedient to God. Today’s blog entry deals with distractions.
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” – Matthew 6:33
Distractions can come in a number of ways. Sometimes they can come in the form of watching excessive hours of television. They can also come in the form of pursuing success (in school, work, relationships, etc) to the point where the focus is taken off of God’s will for an individual’s life. As born again Christians, it’s important to realize that we have an adversary, the devil, who wants to kill, steal, and destroy. The methods that he uses to try to get a person off track may vary from person to person. While he may tempt some people with things such as: fornication, drugs, power etc. He also understands that there are some people who wont go out and do those things. So in those cases he may try a more subtle approach.
For example, say there is an individual that God has gifted to write a book (to be released at a later time) that will positively impact the lives of many people in the body of Christ. If the devil knows this individual wont go out and do something to ruin their own credibility, then he may try to get them to constantly waste time (surfing the internet, being obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder, or a wide variety of other ways). If the devil can get that person to continue to focus on their own wants and desires over God’s wants and desires, then the devil can cause that person to get off course and into disobedience. With that being said, I want to point out that we have a choice in the matter, the “devil made me do it” is not a valid excuse. The devil has tempted many people. Some people choose to give in to the temptation, while other people choose not to give in.
If you were to take an inventory of your time over the last month or so, how much of your free time was actually spent reading the Bible, praying, fellowshipping with other Christians, etc…these are questions we may want to ask ourselves from time to time. The way a person spends their time, and the way a person spends their money can often give a lot of insight on where they place their value.
Let’s take a few moments to think back to school (Elementary, Middle, or High School). During school there are some students who may try to throw the teacher off (and avoid doing work) by being loud, disruptive and causing a scene. There can also be some students who want to avoid doing work but instead of causing a scene, they try to charm their teacher by asking questions about their spouse, children, or other things they know their teacher is passionate about, as a way to take the teachers attention off of their lesson plan. While both sets of students may have had the same objective, they went about doing things using different kinds of distractions.
It’s important that we do not allow distractions to take our focus off of the things that we should be doing for God. We should always seek Him first and desire to carry out His will for our lives. It’s also important that we do not let our guard down, and think we our incapable of committing certain types of sins thus becoming lax in certain areas. We should be renewing our minds on a regular basis.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 2:5
“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” – Matthew 6:33
Distractions can come in a number of ways. Sometimes they can come in the form of watching excessive hours of television. They can also come in the form of pursuing success (in school, work, relationships, etc) to the point where the focus is taken off of God’s will for an individual’s life. As born again Christians, it’s important to realize that we have an adversary, the devil, who wants to kill, steal, and destroy. The methods that he uses to try to get a person off track may vary from person to person. While he may tempt some people with things such as: fornication, drugs, power etc. He also understands that there are some people who wont go out and do those things. So in those cases he may try a more subtle approach.
For example, say there is an individual that God has gifted to write a book (to be released at a later time) that will positively impact the lives of many people in the body of Christ. If the devil knows this individual wont go out and do something to ruin their own credibility, then he may try to get them to constantly waste time (surfing the internet, being obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder, or a wide variety of other ways). If the devil can get that person to continue to focus on their own wants and desires over God’s wants and desires, then the devil can cause that person to get off course and into disobedience. With that being said, I want to point out that we have a choice in the matter, the “devil made me do it” is not a valid excuse. The devil has tempted many people. Some people choose to give in to the temptation, while other people choose not to give in.
If you were to take an inventory of your time over the last month or so, how much of your free time was actually spent reading the Bible, praying, fellowshipping with other Christians, etc…these are questions we may want to ask ourselves from time to time. The way a person spends their time, and the way a person spends their money can often give a lot of insight on where they place their value.
Let’s take a few moments to think back to school (Elementary, Middle, or High School). During school there are some students who may try to throw the teacher off (and avoid doing work) by being loud, disruptive and causing a scene. There can also be some students who want to avoid doing work but instead of causing a scene, they try to charm their teacher by asking questions about their spouse, children, or other things they know their teacher is passionate about, as a way to take the teachers attention off of their lesson plan. While both sets of students may have had the same objective, they went about doing things using different kinds of distractions.
It’s important that we do not allow distractions to take our focus off of the things that we should be doing for God. We should always seek Him first and desire to carry out His will for our lives. It’s also important that we do not let our guard down, and think we our incapable of committing certain types of sins thus becoming lax in certain areas. We should be renewing our minds on a regular basis.
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” – Philippians 2:5