Skip to main content

Thoughts from Bob Goff

Dear Friends,

Today's entry comes from a book I recently purchased at a local Barnes and Noble. It's title is: "Live in Grace, Walk in Love - A 365 Day Journey" by Bob Goff. Today's selection is the 7th entry in the book. Enjoy.


DON’T LET ANYTHING BUT JESUS DISTRACT YOU
“When you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Matthew 6:6

I read that the average person spends one out of every five minutes on social media. It’s literally taking over our lives, minute by minute. To minimize the distraction, software companies have developed apps to keep you off social media for twenty-four hours, no matter what. Some apps are designed to restrict your internet access completely, and you can’t turn your computer off or on, restart your internet, or do anything to get around it. 


This is how serious our distractive habits have become, and I know it personally. We all have our weaknesses. For some people, it’s sports, or fashion, or cars. Me? I can’t stay off social media when friends of mine start posting their kids’ back-to-school pictures or Halloween costumes. How are we supposed to be productive when we see four-year-old pumpkins with superpowers?


It's easy to get distracted by everything else; what takes a little more work is to only get distracted by Jesus. When it comes time for praying or reading about Jesus, it’s easy to feel like we’re wasting time. We get fidgety. Our minds start to wander. Our fingers reach for our phones to take a quick peek and see what our friends are doing. We check to see if we have any more likes or comments on our posts. With all the stuff on our to-do lists and all the opportunities to connect with others, it can feel forced to stop, be still, and be silent.


We’re not wasting time on God. It’s actually the best use of time to spend time with the One who created time in the first place. He knew we would need to eat, sleep, work, and brush our teeth, yet He still asked us to pray. He urged us to spend time with Him because He knew it would actually change everything.



Sure, it’s good to guard your time, but it’s even better to guard your heart. Don’t keep such a tight grip on your time that you miss out on Jesus. Take some time today and decide to only be distracted by Him. What’s your plan for how you can be distracted by Jesus today?

Mr. Goff is right. There are times when we needlessly interrupt our conversation with Jesus to check our posts - as if such things can't wait until the all-important privilege of time spent in prayer with Him is done. Maybe the app he alludes to is a good idea. An app that makes us unable to check our phones for 30, 45, 60 minutes (so as not to interrupt our times of prayer)! We could call it the "Protect Your Prayer Time" app!


That would surely be a best-seller among Christian people, right? Or maybe not. For one would have to regard their fellowship and time spent with Jesus as super-important to cut themselves off entirely from all outside distractions for that long, just so they can be distracted from the world long enough to have a focused, in depth, transformative time of sharing with Him.

Living in His All-sufficient Grace, Pastor Jeff

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thoughts From Horatius Bonar

Dear Friends, If you are like me, you may have had a bad experience in the past with churches that stressed “holiness.” Not because churches shouldn’t, but because the focus was placed on outward conformity to externalisms, or a prescribed set of moralism’s that sucked the atmosphere of grace out of the church. In fact, the more effort-based versions of “holiness” are stressed, the more grace disappears – and the vacuum left in its wake is filled with even more rigid standards of morality and law-based duties – driving all who truly struggle with sin into hiding or pretending. And of all the books I have ever read on holiness (or godliness) none (in my opinion) hold a candle to “God’s Way of Holiness” by the Scottish minister Horatius Bonar (1808-1889). A book I have given to numerous people to read. If you were one who was turned off, or wounded, by a form of holiness based on what Bonar calls, “constrained externalism” or self-effort, I offer you this selection as a taste of w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts on the Moravian Revival

Dear Friends, I have told many that if I was not a pastor, I would be a history teacher! History thrills me! Any history, but church history in particular. Therefore, today, I would like to share one of my favorite events in church history. It is the Moravian Revival or Moravian Pentecost of 1727. It’s too significant of an event for you NOT to know about! So, I offer you this condensed summary, hoping it inspires you as much as it has me. Thanks given to Tony Cauchi whose post on “The Revival Library” ( https://revival-library.org/histories/1727-the-great-awakening-moravians/ ) much of this material was borrowed from and expanded upon. Enjoy! Who Are We Talking About? The Moravians were the spiritual descendants of Jan Hus, the Czechoslovakian reformer/martyr who took his stand on the biblical Gospel of “Grace alone, by Faith alone through Christ alone” and paid for it with his life on July 6, 1415 –just over 100 years before Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts From Rick Morgan and Wendell and Melanie Nofziger

Dear Friends, Today, instead of passing along a thought from a published book, I wanted to offer two different “thoughts” from two personal friends presently ministering in other parts of the world. They attended my church in Honduras at some point between 1994-2005 (on occasions when they were not doing their mission work there). I still follow their ministries with a little bit of envy – just a little, not a sinful amount! The first is by Rick Morgan. Rick now resides with his wife Kim in El Salvador and continues to minister throughout Latin America and Spain as a traveling Pastor/Evangelist/Encourager to pastors and churches. The second is by Wendell and Melanie Nofziger who serve with EMM (Eastern Mennonite Missions) mentoring and making disciples as they direct VidaNet (LifeNet) in Costa Rica. I enjoy ge...
Post a Comment
Read more