As a parent of younger children, one of their main duties is to take care of and provide for the health, needs, and safety of their children. And part of this job may require that they take their children with them in the car to go and get the things that they need, such as food, clothing, etc. Well, while on the way, and I’m sure that many parents will understand, children tend to get bored or restless sitting in the seat in the car for lengthy periods of time, and if they have another sibling sitting next to them quite often they will do things to each other that may annoy each other. Poking, copying, mimicking, face making, yelling, screaming, and so on. All of these things can become quite stressful and distracting to the parent who is driving, and this distraction may often cause that parent to begin to pay less and less attention to the road that is in front of them, and more on the situation that is unfolding in the back seat.
Their job at that moment should be solely focused on studying the road and getting themselves to their destination safely, but the distractions behind them can become a very real problem, and really need to be removed and stopped so that they do not cause serious errors and mistakes to happen on the road.
Likewise, our eyes and our focus as Christians needs to be fixed solely on the Lord, and following His teachings, but sometimes there may be distractions out in the world that will try to pull our attention off of what we should be doing in our faith, and onto something else. Sin is a distraction, which may take the form of any number of things, but there can be no distraction that should pull us away from Christ. Pleasing Him needs to be our number one goal in life, and it will require that we keep ourselves free from the distractions of the world.
2 Timothy 2:3-4 Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.
When you start a project around the house such as cleaning the garage or mowing the yard, do you continue to stick to that task, or do you get sidetracked or distracted by other things which prevent you from finishing what you started? I must admit I find myself doing this too often, as I will start some kind of task but then see something five or ten minutes later and go off to do that task instead, with the result that the original task never gets done. But this can never happen to us in our pursuit of the commands found in the Bible. We can never allow our vision to be pulled away from Christ.
Jesus likened these types of people to seeds sown among thorns, who, because of the distractions of the things of the world entering in, that seed that was sown begins to grow but gets choked out and becomes unfruitful.
Mark 4:18-19 And these are they which are sown among thorns; such as hear the word,
And the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.
If your concern isn’t focused on doing the will of Christ then your focus is pointed in the wrong direction. Just as a parent should keep their focus and attention on the road while they are driving, as Christians our focus and attention needs to be fixed directly on Him. Any distractions that will keep us from achieving this we must shove aside, whatever they are for each person. Everyone has a certain set of things which they may have a weakness for and need to overcome or resist, but through the help of the Holy Spirit we can certainly overcome all things.
You can run a marathon, but if your eyes are not fixed forward towards what is before you you will not see what you are going to run into. All of the sins and temptations of the world need to be pushed aside and removed so that we may keep our eyes focused solely on Christ and His Word.
In Christ
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 