Hi how are you all today? I am well and have had a busy week. How about you?
I want to start by telling you a story. On the way to work I order Subway to eat for lunch and a cookie for when I get to work. I then get off the train, walk to Subway and then walk to my building and go in. This week as I walked to Subway, I was thinking of things I needed to sort for work and soon found myself in my work building. I had completely forgotten to stop at Subway which was only about a minutes walk away. I felt God say that distractions take over purpose.
My purpose was to get Subway and I let distractions take over my purpose. This seems really minor until we look at it from a God point of view. Sure that distraction in my life caused inconvenience, but what distractions are delaying Gods purpose for me. Am I allowing distractions to take over my life where purpose should find itself?
Hebrews 12: 1-3 in the Message Bible states:
12 1-3 Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
This chapter follows on from those heroes of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11. The first part of the verses above tell us that these heroes are cheering us on so we better start running our faith race too. To do that, we need to:
- Strip down- get all the excess baggage off us- that means, doubt, bitterness, anger, comparison just to name a few. Repent of them and release the situations to God.
- Start running- this does not mean physically, although you can; it means spiritually. But when you start running, there are two things you need to establish. The first is where am I running to? That is easy for us Christians- the finish line which is the time we step over into eternity. The second is what am I running for? In the natural, it could be for fitness, to lose weight or to train. In the spiritual, our race is maintaining our salvation, operating in our calling, loving God and loving others. This leaves no room for distractions.
The last one is important- don’t quit- keep going even in those hard times. You can do it.
Then the verses tell us where to focus. It is on Jesus. Distractions cause us to turn our focus off Jesus. They cause us to look at other things. Are those other things bad? Not generally unless we make them an idol. For example:
- Social media is a distraction. Is it bad? It can be if we get our worth and value from it and therefore our purpose becomes pleasing others.
- Sports as a distraction. They aren’t bad unless they are coming between us and God.
- Ourselves can be a distraction. This is when we make our outward appearance more important than God changing us to be more like Jesus on the inside.
Anything can be a distraction if we focus on it instead of on God and our purpose in Him.
There is much more to say on these verses and we will continue next week.
This week take a look at what is distracting you and whether it is delaying your purpose.
Bless you and keep living the life God intended for you.
Karen
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