Encore - 981- Dealing With Distraction - Hebrews 4:15

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.