This past week I went through the Paying Ridiculous Attention to Jesus devotion plan on the Bible App. Here are the thoughts which I had while doing these devotions.
Paying Ridiculous Attention to Jesus
Sunday
(Matthew 26: 36-46)
His (Jesus’) dependent relationship with His Father fueled everything He said and did.
It strikes me that prayer is a lot bigger than I think it is. We read through the Gospels and marvel at the teachings of Christ but just as often as He was teaching, He was off by Himself praying, also. It’s become so difficult in our ADD society to take time pray. Prayer seems like doing nothing, when there are so many stimuli around us that we could be interacting with. But to pray, we would be purposely ignoring those. Maybe we need prayer more than any other group of people in history. Maybe unplugging and focusing on God is so much more important because there’s so much more to unplug from. I’m not saying that’s definitely the case, but it’s something to think about.
Monday
(Matthew 11:16-19)
Jesus loved celebrations and enjoyed himself so much that at one point the religious rule-keepers accused him of gluttony and drunkenness.
We spend so much time thinking of Jesus as the guy in the stories teaching His disciples and the multitudes about love and life that we very often forget that He was a person just like us, and that He liked to have a good time.
Tuesday
(Matthew 5:10-12)
Jesus is simply not intimidated by confrontation and conflict.
Were supposed to be happy when people insult, persecute and defame us because of Jesus. How many times have you ever been happy because somebody is being antagonistic toward you? And I’m not talking about the type of person who gets their jollies out of confrontation; I’m talking about feeling close to Yeshua because you know you’re doing something He would’ve done. I think it would be a lot easier to face persecution if I knew I was actually being righteous. So often I feel persecuted, but is it because of Jesus? Or, is it just because I’ve done something wrong? I guess there’s another option: am I even being persecuted, or do we as a society just feel persecuted when anything doesn’t go our way? Every day our battle cry should be, “JESUS!” When we wake up, the first thing want to do should be to thirst for better understanding of Yeshua. And the same when we go to bed. Do we really love Him? Have we really given our lives over to Him? What are we waiting on?
Wednesday
(Matthew 23:25-28)
Sometimes these status updates, videos, and photos reflect our true hearts and lives; other times they reflect only what we WANT people to think about our hearts and lives.
Our lives are, seemingly, so out in the open. So many people post every portion of their life on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, but most people are only posting what they want other people to see. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing – a lot of times it is the responsible thing to do – but we need to remember that Jesus sees the heart of all of the things we do. We get so used to editing our actions for status updates that we oftentimes don’t bother thinking about changing our actions since it’s so easy to just tell people only what we want them to know. When do we take the opportunity to actually change what we doing instead of just editing it for public consumption?
Thursday
(Matthew 6:19-24)
Whether it’s counting likes on our status update or dollars in our ban account, Jesus’ message is the same: seek a different type of wealth.
We always get so caught up in how much money we make, or how much attention we get from others. It takes a complete restructuring of priorities to see things the way they are seen in the Kingdom. I know that I’m constantly worried about how much money I make on each paycheck. Is it enough for the bills I have to pay? Is it what I deserve to be making? The truth is: none of that matters. I have enough to pay my bills, and if I don’t then God will provide. And as far as if it’s what I deserve to be making, the only thing that I deserve in this world is death, but Jesus came and gave His life for me so that I can live freely. Outside of that, live every day like it’s an opportunity to show the world Yeshua’s love for us.
Friday
(Matthew 5:13-16)
Jesus told his followers to plunge themselves into the mainstream culture like a lamp in a dark room or salt added to a recipe.
Today’s devotion asked to take a minute to reflect on where my life intersects with mainstream culture. Here goes: Work, Facebook, When I’m around my friends.
I need to be more of a light. I need to go out of my comfort zone more often. If the love of Yeshua is truly as life transforming as I’m claiming it to be, why am I not trying to get more people to see the light?
Saturday
(Matthew 28:18-20)
Jesus told his disciples that joining him in his redemptive mission would require us to put our “skin in the game” – our personal investment of risk and hard work is conjoined with his own to advance his Kingdom.
Jesus never pulled His punches so why do we often assume that we need to pull our punches. Certainly, we need to make sure that what we say is grounded in the Word of God but, outside of that, speak the truth and speak it boldly. We so often think that by sugar coating the effects of sin on the world that we will not offend those we are hoping to bring to Messiah, but it is never our words or our decisions that bring other to Christ, it is the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus. It has nothing to do with us. Speak boldly in love, but speak boldly.
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