Saturday, June 16, 2007

Five Things That Distract Us From God

1. We're distracted when we're focusing more on the trappings of worship (music style, song choice, service order) than we're focusing on actually worshiping God. How we approach our gathered worship reflects how we approach our whole lives of worship.

2. We're distracted when we're doing things to earn favor with God. Sorry, but Jesus has already done that. We now obey because we love Him (because He first loved us). Remember, doing the "right thing" can still be a sin, because God looks at our heart motivation. Do we love Him or are we just "earning points" of His favor?

3. We're distracted when we're trying to be Him. It takes energy and makes us tired when we try to be God. We're not good at it anyway. Instead, we need to rely on His Spirit for strength and guidance. Give Him control.

4. We're distracted when we get caught up in religion. That's DOING things out of habit instead of BEING available to be used. Sometimes we get caught up doing things over and over (reading our Bible, doing "good" deeds, behaving a certain way). When we do this we focus on our goals and not His.

5. We're distracted when we're not talking about Jesus all the time. When we stop talking about Jesus, we take our focus off Him. When we take our focus off Him, we begin focusing on ourselves.