Wisdom for Distracted Souls

It is amazing the amount of junk mail and publications that a pastor has come across his desk! Every ministry, business, & cause wants to convince the pastor of the importance of what they are doing so that he will become their cheerleader and promote whatever it is that they are advocating. They know that if they reach the pastor, they will most likely reach the church. So it becomes very easy as a pastor to become less than enthusiastic in sorting through the numerous publications & pieces of mail that come his way.

Having said that, this week I was sorting through my usual pile when my attention was caught by the title of an article published in the Tolle Lege (pick up and read) newsletter that I receive from Reformation Heritage Books (a company that has GREAT books). The title of the article was Wisdom For Distracted Souls. As I read the article, the Lord used that article to remind me that regardless of what I am going through at this time in my life, I was not made for this earth but for a better place. Not only that, but as a Christian I am to live my life on this earth with the reality of heaven in mind. It was a timely reminder for me and I thought it might be beneficial for you as well:

During times of personal or public worship, do you find your heart wandering from religious duties? Do prayer, meditation, and listening to the Word become times of deep inner struggle as your heart is pulled from one distraction to another? We are all familiar with such times, for sin ever fetters the heart of man to the things of this world so that even in times of solemn worship we find we cannot raise ourselves to where Jesus Christ is seated. In his book, Attending upon God without Distraction, Nathanael Vincent writes:

While we are in this world, truly this world is too much in us; it is suitable to our senses, and apt to entice and draw away our hearts. Let the eye of faith pierce through the clouds and see heaven’s joy and glory, and then this world’s vanity will be the more apparent. How vain it is for you to be so thoughtful about it and eager after this world. When faith has seen how God is attended upon by saints and angels above, it may help to kindle in you a holy zeal and a vehement desire to more resemble those excellent attendants, and to serve the Lord more gladly and seriously here below.

Oh, cry out to have the cure of distractions carried on further toward completeness. Live as strangers and sojourners here on earth, not concerned about worldly things as others are. Declare plainly that you are born from above, and let your hearts and thoughts more and more ascend there. Carry yourselves as fellow citizens with the saints, and as those who are of the household of God. Let there be more of God, and more of grace in all you do and speak, in all the powers of your souls, in all the duties you perform. And think with gladness and longing of the blessed inheritance, when you shall be fully delivered from sin and death, and from all deadness and distraction in mind and heart. Everlasting rest must eternally exclude whatever now troubles you. How perfectly healed and perfect in holiness and joy will you be in every way when you have attained to the glorious liberty of the sons of God!

As Paul reminds us in Colossians 3:1-4:

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. 3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. (Col 3:1-4 NAU)

May God give you the ability to see the circumstances of earth through the lenses of eternity!

In Christ,

Rick