Be serious! Be alert! Your adversary the Devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him and be firm in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world. 1 Peter 5:8 HCSB
Our world today is full of distractions. There is evil all around us. Some of these distractions are easy to spot as being evil. But some even masquerade themselves as being godly and good for us. We must be sober and alert. We must know the difference. It’s so easy to see some of these evangelists preaching about the goodness of God and get wrapped up in their message that speaks of how it’s all good. But, sadly, it’s not all good.
If we are deceived or we are tricked into believing it’s all good, we can become distracted. We can lose our focus, and this puts us in a very dangerous position. This can cause us to let our guard down. We are told in Matthew 6:33 to first seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other things will be provided for us. Our focus should be on God. It should be on His righteousness. We should be seeking His righteousness in our lives. We can be righteous on our own but are told in 1 John 1:9 if we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
God is all we need, and the devil knows this. This is why he puts all these distractions in our way. The devil loves to distract us. He loves to get our focus off of God. He can use all kinds of things to do this. He can use people, money, crime, politics and a number of other things.
When he uses people, we tend to get mad at the person or people. This can cause anger and bitterness and the devil loves to fill a Christian up with anger and bitterness. If he can do this, he can destroy a person’s witness. He can cause a person to begin to obsess and focus on how angry they are at this other person or this group of people. The devil can really do a number on us if he can use anger and bitterness to distract us. This is why we are told to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. If you do this and mean it, you will cease to be angry at that person. You will actually do it God’s way and let Him handle it. He tells us in Romans 12:19 vengeance belongs to Him. We are also told if we hate someone it is equal to murdering them. You may not go to jail for hating someone, but you can go to hell for that. Be very careful.
The devil can also use envy to distract us. Many people are drowning in debt because they can’t wait to pay cash for the things they want, or they spend their lives “keeping up with the Joneses”. This is why the Tenth Commandment tells us not to covet what belongs to our neighbor.
With all the evil and hypocrisy floating all around us, it’s so easy to become distracted. I beg of you to simply focus on Him and His goodness and let Him handle all the rest.
Have a great day!