Galatians 1:1-10
2 Timothy 4:1-5
2 Corinthians 11:1-6
Freedom, Day 1
Distraction
/dəˈstrakSH(ə)n/
1) a thing that prevents someone from giving full attention to something else.
2) a diversion or recreation.
3) extreme agitation of the mind or emotions.
Guys. I get distracted. Easily.
I can’t even claim ADD, I’m just distracted.
I have the very best of intentions, but for the love, I simply have the hardest of times focusing on finishing just one thing.
And since I’m being honest, can I just confess that one of my biggest “one things” is spiritual discipline?
Whether it’s sitting down to journal God’s Word, read it, or pray, the distractions come hot and heavy.
I have the very best of intentions.
Quiet time, rising early, memorizing Scripture, transcribing passages, prayer journals.
You would be astonished how many of my “quiet times” have been demolished because I couldn’t find a pen!
Then the children find me.
Then the quiet isn’t quiet.
Then that email pops up, that Facebook notification, oh I have to make that phone call, and what about dinner, or that gift I was going to buy for my friend?
In the whisper of a few blinks, time has passed and I’ve closed my Bible, moving into my day without a drop of time spent truly in His presence.
So close, but so far away.
All on my own strength, and none of His.
Ladies, we are embarking on an incredible journey through Galatians.
It’s full of beauty, of rich detail, and a million daily applications to our everyday life.
This book’s message of freedom?
We Need It!
We need to hear it, study it, and own it.
But first, we need to look our apathetic distractions square in the eye and speak out loud what Paul said to the Galatians.
(Go ahead, practice your astonished voice out loud right now… Do it!)
“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him
who called you in the grace of Christ
and are turning to a different gospel”
Woah, what?!
I’m not turning to a different gospel!
I love Jesus, and hold his Word high!
That Creed study? Agreed right there with you at every point!
Deserting Him!?
Never.
Jesus is mine!
Consider the words of famous preacher, Charles Spurgeon:
“Ah! You know more about your ledgers than your Bible.
You know more about your daybooks than what God has written;
many of you will read a novel from beginning to end and what have you got?
A mouthful of froth when you have done!
But you cannot read the Bible;
that solid, lasting, substantial, and satisfying food goes uneaten,
locked up in neglect…”
“I charge you with this: you do not read your Bibles.
Some of you never have read it through.
I know I speak what your heart must say is honest truth: You are not Bible readers!
You say you have the Bible in your houses
(do I think you are such heathens as not to have a Bible?)
But when did you read it last?
How do you know that your spectacles, which you have lost, have not been there for the last three years?”
(Sermons of the Rev. C. H. Spurgeon of London)
My sisters, my friends, I am guilty of this.
I will glance at a verse a friend puts on Facebook, I’ll even soak up sermons on Sunday, I’ll read a devotional and skim the verses it points to,
but these are not reading the Bible, this is distracted browsing.
Here’s the reality, if we are so distracted that we cannot linger and saturate our souls with the real, raw, fullness of the gloriously freeing gospel, there is no way we can hold unswervingly to its fullness without slipping ever so slowly into “another gospel”.
It’s easier than you might think…
We get so distracted from the continual intake of solid Scripture because we love to be entertained.
The Bible was not given for our entertainment and will always fail to capture our attention if entertainment is all we seek.
Pinterest beckons.
Instagram lures.
And all social media aside….
Those dishes scream, the laundry wails, the emails, the spat with our spouse, the relationships with friends, the worries, the “not enoughs”……
All. So. Deafening.
All so distracting.
Hence, we’ve fallen prey to “another gospel”.
One where we are responsible for our own growth.
A gospel where we produce our own righteousness.
A gospel where we are our own god, we set the rules, and where there is no rest for the weary, only more performance.
We had the very best of intentions.
So close, but so far away.
All on our own strength, and none of His.
The gospel is this:
Christ crucified, buried, risen, and returning, all to pay a debt we never could, and restore a relationship we never had rights to.
It’s. All. Jesus.
There’s not a smidgen we can add to this glorious gospel truth.
Nothing we can do to earn His favor.
Nothing we can do to live victoriously on our own.
Nothing we can accomplish of eternal value by our own hands.
Nothing we can cling to in these voracious everyday moments of real, gritty life other than the pure, steadfast, solid, lasting, substantial, and satisfying gospel!
Commit now with me to cease the distractions.
Commit to feast fully on His delectable Word, studying Him in His fullness, in order that the pure freedom of the gospel might be unleashed in our everyday and transform us from the inside out!
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