Light-filled lives (part 3)

Okay... it's 12:16am and I'm still awake... surfing! I need to go to bed, but I'm only one click away from more information or a great article that I can use either personally or in our ministry.

With that in mind, let's look at the things that steal from us...

Heb. 12:1 (CEV) Such a large crowd of witnesses is all around us! So we must get rid of everything that slows us down, especially the sin that just won't let go. And we must be determined to run the race that is ahead of us.

Notice the things that we are supposed to get rid of in order to run our race successfully... of course we know that we should do away with sin. Sin is anything contrary to God's nature, anything that comes between us and Him.

But Paul tell us we're also supposed to remove anything that slows us down. This is talking about distractions. These aren't sins; but they are things that steal from us. They steal our energy, our time and, in essence, they steal life from us.

As I mentioned, one of the "thieves" that I deal with is the internet. I'm not talking about porn sites or anything crazy like that; but I am talking about news, history and human interest websites. If I'm not careful, I will waste hours of my life on them... time which I can never get back.

When we find we're not experiencing the "abundant life" that Jesus promised us... we often need to simplify: unplug, logoff (of course I'm not referring to THIS blog!) and get away. This takes discipline, but the benefits are incredible!