In my last post; I talked about the difference between “worldly” blessings that are all based around things that ultimately won’t have any impact on eternity, vs kingdom blessings – blessings that bring us and others closer to God. These kingdom blessings can often times be disguised at first as hardships and trials we are going through, but ultimately are the exact thing we needed to be challenged By God to grow in our relationship with Christ.
Worldly blessings can also cause us to be distracted. It is so easy to get caught up in the distractions that America in and of itself can bring. Our pastor just gave a sermon about the church in Laodicea and what God thinks about Christians who get caught up in earthly treasures and become “lukewarm” Christians.
Revelation 3:15-16 says, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 1So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
Most bible scholars would say “spit you out” is a very tame phrase for how God actually feels. However, we all act this way. We get caught up in the things of this world that get us distracted from what really matters. How often when someone asks us how we’re doing do we respond, “busy.” Busy with what? Trying to get that next promotion at work, kid’s activities, social media, houses, cars, etc. The list can go on and on and include many things that are not bad in general. But when we spend the majority of our time there and lose focus on our ultimate purpose; that’s when we have to stop and take a hard look at what we are truly valuing as what’s most important in our life.
Last thing I’ll leave you with is a story I heard about a Christian guy from a 3rd world country who had nothing, moved to America and gained “everything” that America had to offer. He no longer needed to depend on God, his faith dwindled, his relationship with Christ became stagnant and he went through some extremely hard times. Those tough times ended up bringing him back to his faith, but maybe could’ve been avoided if he always kept Christ at the center of what’s most important. And how do you tell what is most important? Where do you spend the majority of your time and money? That’s usually a pretty good indicator.
My hope is not that you would read this and everyone would feel like you need to move to a 3rd world country today. Maybe that is the case for some. My hope is that we can all focus each day a little more on things that will have an impact in eternity and a little less on the things that don’t.