30 SEP 23 Saturday: A Closer Walk Devotional
“Wherever your treasure is there is the desires of your heart will also be. No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” Matthew 6: 21, 24
Time and time again, I talk to people talk to me about their next assignment, tour, or what they will do when they leave the military. I find those conversations to be intriguing and sometimes disheartening. Change and the unknown can produce anxiety in a person’s life. All of us are affected by change in different ways. These seasons of change are actually opportunities for self-reflection and a deeper connection to God.
We will often sit and discuss a potential new job, location for a tour, or new places to see and experience. We start dreaming or exploring the positives and negatives of the new phase that will be entered. We actually start to grieve a bit, knowing that we have planted roots, made friends, and have probably hit a good rhythm in what we do. Sometimes we don’t want to leave, but we have to.
What about God? Do we ever take the time to ask him, what do you want? Is there a place you have us serve? Do you want to develop us in a place we don’t necessarily want to go? When I ask those questions, people pause and respond; I didn’t think about that. Well, God desires to be in the kind of relationship that we talk to him about everything. He is the author and finisher of our faith, so he will orchestrate where we will go, and who we will meet and serve. He will also put before us the challenges of developing our character and the gifts of the Spirit.
Jesus tells his followers to be mindful of where your heart’s desires are placed. If it is focused on temporal earthly things, you will go astray. It is a heart check. If you don’t check yourself, you will wreck yourself. Our service and lives must be devoted to God, that means laying down our future before him and saying, take it and make it useful to thee.
Where is your life devoted and whom do you serve?
Reading Plan: Psalm 87, 90; 2 Kings. 11:1-20; 1 Cor. 7:10-24; Matt. 6:19-24
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