Thursday Reading: Matthew 6:19-24
Key Verse: Matthew 6:24
24 No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Devotion:
Name one thing that is most likely to stop you from going to church. Name one thing that would sidetrack you when you try to read your bible. Name one thing that stops you from reading your bible every day. When you stop to think about things, there are so many distractions that we have in our lives that is looks like a bit of a miracle that we can continue to follow God!
That is the game that Satan plays. He continues to throw every sort of temptations and distraction our way so that we will not serve God to the fullest that we can. He will even put other religions in our way so that we will begin to have doubts. He will distract us away from God’s Word and then level us with all manner of doubts so that our faith becomes weak. That is the time when he has us over a barrel and that, sadly, is where so many people go before they have a chance to hear God’s Word as it should be heard.
Once we have an eye for the life that Satan offers it is hard to turn away from it without the encouragement of others. It is hard to fight against the flow; just like trying to swim upstream... it is so much easier just to go with the flow and see where you end up. But what we do not see is the final destination of our efforts because when our efforts are our own, they will only take us downstream. There are very few rivers that do not end up at a perilous destination!
What we focus on will become the life that we live. What we continue to look at will start to seem normal to us. When things begin to seem familiar we start to bring them into our lives. When we bring things into our lives we allow them to continue and eventually they become habitual or we get carried away with the short-term enjoyment or excitement that we gain. We need to focus on our long-term goal; that of being in heaven with God!
Points to Ponder:
How long does it take you to go through your daily devotions?
Are you giving God the time that He alone deserves?
