When Jesus was here His disciples were preoccupied with their ideas about the Messiah. Who He would be and what He would do occupied their minds so much that they nearly missed the One Who chose them to follow Him and learn from Him. In some ways, this same preoccupation keeps many people today from becoming disciples of Jesus. They hear all of the wonderful gifts we are given through our belief in Him, but they seem to have blinders that keep them from seeing Him as their Lord and Savior.
It’s like we are too busy with “things” in our lives that get in the way of our commitment and desire to know and follow Him. How can we commit some time to studying His Word every day? The only way I know is to have a Bible study app on my phone and follow it daily. Life gets in the way of our commitment to Him, which is the problem. We should give our troubles and our cares of this life to Him so we can learn how to be His disciples.
Many who go to church hear this wonderful news and yet their life gets in the way. Everyday worries and troubles cause them to become distracted from following Jesus. They don’t believe that they have become distracted because they still listen to God’s Word and pray but your day should begin and end with His Word and with prayer in between to keep you on your pathway.
God doesn’t get preoccupied. He takes care of the whole universe and He is interested in your daily life as well. Most of us don’t understand that God cares that much about each of us, not just as a whole but individually. Remembering what Jesus told His Father in His prayer for the disciples is humbling. “I pray that they will be one just as we are one”. His hope for us was to be as one and not splintered and divided like the church is today.
It seems that many of us get distracted from our walk with Jesus. Sometimes it happens as we leave the church on Sunday and it carries on through the week until we are back at church again. Think about Jesus being distracted from His mission. How would that have played out? Not very well I’d imagine because if He can get distracted then He can’t be God in the flesh! I’m sure He was tempted to “take a day” but He couldn’t. That is what I imagine those times that He went off by Himself to be with the Father were about.
It is a radical idea for today but God says we are supposed to support and help each other as Christians. That doesn’t mean that we pay each other’s bills or buy each other’s groceries but don’t put a church down because they believe differently. Pray for each other and support every part of the Body of Christ, the church! Do we do this today? NO! We attack each other on social media and in other ways too. Why? Only God knows the real reason and He doesn’t like it at all.
Please pray for each other regardless of which church or denomination you are. If there is ever going to be a revival in America or the world, we MUST pray for each other.
Be grateful that God doesn’t stay angry with us because all of us deserve it. God loves us which is why He sent Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins.
Jesus came to show God’s love toward people and it was this love that held Him on the cross for you and me.
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
Life events, like raising a child or having a few birthdays, add to your perspective on life. Age is supposed to bring wisdom and if you learn from those years, it does. When there’s a child involved, whether it’s your own or a grandchild, you should look at your life and evaluate how much you have to teach them. God says that we’re supposed to train our children and if we don’t, we aren’t following His directives.
The reason for the Bible is to give us hope in salvation through Jesus but if we are “self-righteous” like the teachers of the law during His time on Earth we will miss that hope altogether.
It begins in the church. The humbling for the world and the United States in particular begins in the church! We, as Christians, need to give up ourselves and seek God as our Lord…but we don’t know how. Even when we’ve been in the church all of our lives. So many of us spend every day looking for a path and we haven’t turned loose of ourselves yet!
We have to crucify ourselves daily like Jesus said, to realize our place in His calling to us. God’s call on our lives is more serious than most of us realize because of the “things” we need to give up. Our problem is those “things”, whatever they may be. To some people, those are big items and sometimes we have a hard time even considering giving up our personal “idols”.
Nowhere in Scripture is it referenced in a way for us to know the “how” of giving up ourselves and the parts of our lives that have become “idols”. That is the part that makes Christianity and being a Christian hard to understand and do. Truthfully, we don’t know how because no one else knows how to teach the “how”. Reading and studying God’s Word prayerfully and sincerely will teach us a little bit about the “how” but it’s not an easy lesson. We are not taught in our lives how to place our lives down as a sacrifice daily and follow Jesus in His teachings.
Sometimes we don’t find a way to do this until we are broken in our spirit by something happening in our lives. It could be a loss in your family or it could be God getting your attention by your own “demons” like alcoholism or drugs or something else that brings you to your knees. Until that happens most of us won’t surrender our lives to Him until we hit that wall and realize that we can’t do it on our own.
The Living Message of Christ 