Distractions <—Must read!

Posted by thedeaconscorner

“Be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming…if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.” Matthew 24:42-43 NASB

It was the summer of 1914, and everyone in Paris seemed to be talking about events surrounding the French finance minister, Joseph Caillaux. Angered by a tax Caillaux introduced, the newspaper Le Figaro had published his love letters to a former mistress who divorced her husband to marry Caillaux.

The scandal further revealed that Caillaux had divorced his first wife to marry a second woman with whom he had an affair. Angered as lurid details were published, his second wife shot and killed the editor of Le Figaro. 

Her trial began just days after the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. As the scandal grabbed the headlines, the world marched relentlessly toward World War I, a war that would bring unprecedented devastation. But that July, as one historian commented, Parisians “were more interested in the melodramatic mixture of adultery and moral corruption in high political circles.”

Today, millions of people allow their lives to be caught up in these kinds of distracting stories-celebrity gossip, the sins of politicians, the excesses of Wall Street, and the lifestyles of the rich and famous. 

In the strongest terms, Jesus warned of the dangers of distractions like these: Our spiritual lives can be “choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:13-14). We need to be on the alert, remembering that our time on earth is short. We must be ready to face eternity, ready for the coming of the Lord.

Don’t allow distractions to dominate your life. Keep your eyes on Jesus. Seek first the Kingdom of God. Stay alert, focused, and vigilant.