How do you treat Jesus? Look at the door of the room or area you are in right now. Imagine Jesus Christ walked through that door and wanted to spend time with you. How would you respond? What would you do? It is easy to imagine falling at His feet and holding onto Him as Mary did in the garden after His Resurrection. But a good indicator of how you feel about Him is how you treat the Word of God.
An old preacher named Edward Payson once said, “As we treat the Word of God, so should we treat God Himself, were He to come and reside among us in human form, as He once dwelt on earth in the form of His Son.”
How we treat the Word of God though is a monumental challenge all its own. This proves true in my own life every morning. I wake up, take a shower, and get dressed. Then I try to spend 30–40 minutes in the Scriptures. This seemingly simple task seems wasted because I all too often find my mind drifting to whatever important thing is happening that week, or anything else clamoring for my attention. My mind is so eager to leave the Word of God that I must fight myself to stay focused. I venture to say that this is a challenge faced by all of us.
Having a distracted mind is not the only thing that can waste our devotional time. Here are ten things that may keep our minds and hearts off Christ. We must see them as challenges to overcome in our pursuit of holiness.
If you have seen any of these in your life, do not just accept them. Turn them on their heads and see them as challenges. But you cannot rely only on your own efforts. Pray to God for conviction of your need for His Word and the ability to pursue Him in the Scriptures as He desires you to. You have no reason to expect that He would withhold this from you, so ask boldly and in confidence. God wants to draw you closer to Him, and He will reward your earnest petition.
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If our nation will turn away from its downward spiral into secularism and once again seek the true God, it will begin with Christians in the hand of a sovereign God.