Becoming the Man God's Future Requires
Good morning, sir!
Welcome to day seventeen! If you're reading this, I thank you! You're pressing forward in your spiritual development!
Please join me in prayer: Lord, the most important thing about me is my relationship with You! What does it profit me if I gain the whole world but lose You? Today, I align my desires with Yours. Fill me now! In Jesus' name, amen!
The favor of God is not fair! I bet we've all experienced God's favor! We've watched Him multiply things in our lives because God is a multiplier!
But here's the danger! Those multiplied blessings can bring us face-to-face with Jesus' warning in His parable of the seed sown among thorns.
This parable is so foundational that Jesus asks His disciples, "How then will you understand all the parables?" (Mark 4:13)
And here's the frightening part: Not one of us is immune to the thorns that can creep into our hearts and gradually draw us away from dependence upon Him!
The thorns are never far away! Jesus identifies three:
The cares of this world.
The deceitfulness of riches.
The desires for other things. (Mark 4:19)
Who among us is immune to these distractions that can enter our hearts and eventually choke the very Word God planted there?
Think about that! Jesus doesn't say these people rejected the Word. They received it! But they allowed other things to compete with it until those things eventually choked its life out of them!
This takes Moses' warning even deeper. It's not that we hate Jesus. It's just that we're so distracted by everything else that we can't find time for Him!
Let's close with this prayer: O Lord, thank You for this warning! I need it! And I need others in Your Body to help guard my heart against these destructive thorns.
Lord, I voluntarily make myself dependent upon You and upon others in Your Body. And like Paul, I declare, "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that You are able to keep everything I've entrusted to You until the very end!" (2 Timothy 1:12)
Lord, I can't do this on my own! I need You working within me, "both to will and to work for Your good pleasure!" (Philippians 2:13) Amen!