I have on any given day been guilty of falling into one or more of the distractions below. If we are honest most of us can relate to seeing ourselves in at least a few, if not many of the distractions found below.

This can be easily corrected. Let us make God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit uppermost in our lives, as we either claim or imagine we do. Let us live it, breathe it, do it, and be it really.

I have found unless I awaken, pray before my feet hit the floor, then take care of bodily needs, and then return to spend quiet, contemplative, prayerful, and faithful study in God’s Word I end up delaying, pushing back, and then fall into category #7, as I imagine some reading this also do.

This is not good.

We must go to, eat of, drink of that which provides daily nourishment and life. That is the greatest help. The only true truth. That which we need more than anything else. The Word of God.

Forget putting phones on silent. Turn the things off! To live in the 21st century one would come to believe that it is that thin rectangular box with a glowing screen held in a hand that provides oxygen, food, water, and life itself. People act as if they do not have their phones in hand, and now those ridiculous earpieces crammed in their ears and their phones on 24/7/365 they will die. They will just die!

How did human beings manage to get from the Garden of Eden through the timeline of history to the 21st century without having a mobile phone giving them life, providing them life, keeping them alive!? Dependence on mobile phones is like a baby always needing a pacifier in its mouth.

Get weened off the nipple folks.

I do not spend a lot of time trying to imagine what heaven is like, I believe it to be a futile exercise in a finite-minded human being that cannot come close to comprehending the wonder which heaven holds — but I am sure of one thing. There will be no mobile phones in heaven.

How will you manage an eternity such as that!?

The Word of God is more important than anything else. For it instructs us how to love, how to live, how to think, how to be. Why then do we not embrace and imbibe of it daily, deeply, and devotionally while we place so many other obstacles before it?

That, my friends, dear ones, my brothers, and sisters, is the work of Satan in us and not the work of the Holy Spirit.

Hard? Harsh? Well, it’s reality.

Time we all spend a lot more time in reality than in a too hurried and busy life that is not nearly as full as we imagine as we miss out daily on the gifts, the treasures, and the life-giving words within the Word of God.

Everything here, everything, everything ever known will fade away. Be forever forgotten. We contend we desire to be with God, with Jesus, in heaven. Then let us flame and keep burning brightly and hot the desire to get to know God, to get to know Jesus better and better and better here and now readying us for the eternity to come. If we contend that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are uppermost in our lives and we want to live with Them in heaven forever more than anything, then, why is it we treat the Book of Life on earth, the Holy Bible as we do?

Eat of the Word before eating your breakfast.

Wheaties might well be the breakfast of champions, but eating and drinking of the Word of God upon being blessed by the Lord with a new day is the breakfast of those who grow closer to God, can endure greater trials and tribulations, are better equipped for that day, increase in one of the greatest of gifts — spiritual wisdom and discernment — and become better equipped for the day the Lord has blessed us with, and the next, and the next should we be so blessed…and eternity.

Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

Ten Distractions in Your Bible Reading

A good indicator of how a person actually feels about Jesus is how he treats the Word of God.

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

By Jordan Chamblee

Reprinted from The Stand

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’s 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 actually 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 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 to 40 minutes in the Scriptures. This seemingly simple task seems wasted because I all too often find my mind drifting to whatever big 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 literally have to fight myself to stay focused. I venture to say that this is a challenge faced by all of us.

Having a distracted mind isn’t the only thing that can waste our devotional time. Here are 10 things to be aware of that can keep our minds and hearts off Christ. See them as challenges to overcome in our pursuit of holiness.

1. Putting it off. You know those mornings. You’ve slept a little late and have to get to work or class. You decide to put off your Bible reading. You’ll get to it some other time. But throughout the day you never get the chance, or you forget altogether. When you remember, you’re already tired and in bed. So you decide you’ll do it in the morning. Wash, rinse, repeat.

2. Skirting the issue. If there’s anything in your life out of line with the will of God, you tend to stay away from the passages that deal with that issue. This is refusing to submit to the authority of God; reading the Word while holding on to the sin in your heart is worse than not reading the Word at all.

3. Distractions. There are times when big things in your life get in the way of your devotional time, and that’s fine. But most of the time, distractions aren’t so urgent. What grabs your attention when you sit down for Scripture reading? Is your phone on silent so that texts won’t divert your gaze? Are you thinking about someone’s post on social media? What is at the forefront of your mind?

4. Medicine cabinet reading. God knows your needs and how to fill them. But it can be a temptation to treat the Bible like a medicine cabinet, selecting passages to read that will simply make you feel better about something. This is unhelpful because the Bible is not a utility. The Bible is not a set of instructions to make life better; the Bible is the voice of God speaking to you.

5. Speed reading. Are you reading a passage to check it off your routine list, or are you taking the time to listen to God? Reading through the Bible quickly, without meditating, rarely accomplishes anything.

6. Defensive reading. When you read God’s Word, are you allowing it into every area of your heart? Or are you keeping one or two rooms locked away, not willing to let God go in and change them?

7. Exhausted reading. This can be a result of not planning out your day to include Bible reading. As a Christian, you cannot afford to spend all your energy and leave none for the Word of God.

8. “It’s all about me.” This lie of Satan is so easy to fall for. The Bible is first and foremost the revelation of God to humanity. It is primarily concerned with communicating the holy character of God.

9. Picking and choosing. We all have our favorite passages of Scripture. But do you gravitate toward them and spend more time reading them than the rest of the Word? You must read the whole Word of God to rightly understand it.

10. Weightless reading. When you read the Word, does it have an effect on your life? Are you changed by what you read? Is it real and concrete to you or simply good sentiments? This is the Word of the infinite Holy God. What it says, it means.

If you’ve seen any of these in your life, don’t 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.