Jul 27, 2023
Hey, it's Mike Henry
with Follower of One. Today's passage is Hebrews 4:15, “For we do
not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without
sin.” On the September 18th edition of “My Utmost for His Highest”,
the September 18th entry, Oswald Chambers talks about this passage,
and he draws a parallel between temptation and
distraction.
Jesus said many times
that He came only to do the will of His father, and He focused on
that and He achieved that. He also said at the end of His life,
that it is finished, He had done the will of His father. He had
done those things.
Chambers makes this
suggestion that whenever we're tempted to do something else with
our resources, our time, our energy, our attention, any of those
things, those temptations… That's one way that we can talk about
temptation in this passage, “For we do not have a high priest who
cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted
in all things as we are, yet without sin.”
In other words,
anytime I'm distracted, taken away from what God would have as my
purpose in my job or in my day, how I live my life. If I live
according to my own flesh, if I live according to my own desires,
my own wants and needs. Even if I don't do anything that hurts
anyone, if I'm a good Christian and stay out of trouble, but I'm
distracted and I use the resources God has given me for some goal
other than what God might've intended, I'm submitting to this
temptation. I'm falling into it. Satan can distract us from God's
plan and take us out of being part of God's plan with these kinds
of distractions.
Maybe it's watching
movies, or maybe it's playing video games. Maybe it's focusing so
much on our career and our job, that we miss opportunities to be a
blessing to the people that we work with. I think these are all
acceptable temptations to Satan. He wants to take us out of God's
plan and if he can distract us, he's accomplished his objective. We
have this challenge to, and Chambers calls it “be of value to God.”
I would actually call it more “take part in God's plan.” We can
punch in. We say, here I am. We put ourselves on God's clock and we
say, “Alright, God, what do you want me to do today?” We remind
ourselves that we want to listen to him and do what he has for
us.
Because when our
attention is focused on him, when we use our time and our energy
and our resources to further the kingdom of God in some way - maybe
it's simply by appreciating people or by praying for our coworkers
- we get to take part in the joy that God intends for us. This is a
joy that we can experience now by following Him, and we will
experience it in eternity.
I want to challenge us
today as followers of Jesus. How can we pay a little more attention
to how we allocate the resources God has given us towards his work?
Towards taking part in his plan? Let's try and use our time, and
our energy, and our attention, and our money, and everything that
we do as something that can glorify God. And let's consider the
distractions, the things that make us stop thinking about God, as
temptations, and trying to avoid those.
I want to be
intentionally engaged with Jesus all day today in my job. Lord
Jesus, would you make that happen? That's my, "here I am" prayer
for today.
Thank you so much for
being a marketplace minister, and thank you for making a difference
in the marketplace. I hope these are beneficial to you, these
devotionals. Please share them with your friends and check us out
at followerone.org, where you can learn
more about our online community and take part in the next
marketplace mission trip. Thanks very much.