Pure Devotion

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” -Genesis 3:1-7

“For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” -2 Corinthians 11:2-3 

“You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, “He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”? But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” - James 4:3-10

“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” -John 14:3

"The serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood. But the earth came to the help of the woman, and the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea..." -Revelation 12:15-17; 13:1a

You can do anything online these days, from researching anything you want to know, to ordering food. Somehow it has become many of our lives. 

Servers and the cloud hold so much information which is accessible by a computer. You can know good and evil in a click. You can listen to good things, and evil things, you can know what is good to do or what is evil. So much knowledge is available and it is increasing everyday. Google alone has so much information along with so many others. We used to think them innocent, but are they? More information about how they store you can read in  this post. 

Even Satellite, internet, all these have so much information that can easily lead people astray. {See Matthew 24:4-8, and Revelation 13:11-18} People can think one way because of one post, and others another because of other information they've heard. We can know so much, but it only puffs us up and makes us proud. The only way we can go on is through love. We must have love. We may know right from wrong and explain it to someone else, but the letter kills, only the Spirit gives life. {See 2 Corinthians 3:6, see John 6:63} We are bogged down by our flesh, we need to be freed and enter into true worship with God in the Spirit. There is only ONE who has true information, only ONE we can believe, so why do we not spend MORE time reading His Word and getting to KNOW Him more intimately than we spend on our gadgets?

These days we have constant distraction from Media, phones, articles, news, so much is going on we don't have time for God like we used to. We have many things to make life easier, but we still don't have time. I pray we take time to talk with God often, all through our day. He is the only ONE who has the truth. We must believe Him and take Him at His word, this world is passing away, along with everything in it. Time spent on our phone, will that count for eternity? 

In the old days, men of old would pray for someone when they came to mind. Today we text them and send them an encouraging word. Is it good? Sure, it may be a good thing, but I think of how the devil first came to Eve. She learned the difference between good and evil without going to the tree of LIFE. Are we missing something? Are we not going to the Tree of Life and dying so that we can find out what GOD thinks is truly good? Electronic communication, we can easily put thoughts into others minds, even secretly without others knowing. It may seem good, but how powerful prayer is - that we can pray and God can work and no one will ever know who it was? Perhaps these things are not evil in themselves, but I believe we must be very careful with how much we use them and how entangled we get into the world.

Even in the internet, we can find good and evil, are we going to this to find out knowledge, or are we going to GOD to find LIFE? Can you imagine with the Pharisees thought when Jesus told them they searched the scriptures because they thought through them they would find eternal life, but they didn't go to HIM, the author of LIFE to find LIFE? {see John 5:39-40} Are we making the same mistake? Are we missing something? Are we not going to Him for life?

I think of how Paul said he had a jealousy over the Corinthians, he longed they would have a pure simple devotion to Jesus. Just as Eve was deceived by the serpent, he was afraid they too would be deceived. I believe the media, computers, phones, internet and what not is all distracting us from our pure simple devotion to Jesus. I see that after the devil tried to kill of the Jews, he went then to those who followed Jesus with all their hearts, he wanted to deceive them in some clever way. If he couldn't get them by killing them, he could get them by killing them in ways they never even would have realized, for as Matthew 24:24 says, even if possible, the elect possibly could be deceived. 

We must be careful, we must hold on to the truth so as to be saved. 

As John warned the church in Revelation, to love their first love! They were doing so many good things, yet one thing was missing, they did not love their first love. Their devotion to HIM as their first love had faded, they thought they loved Him by doing all these things, yet they were not willing to sit at His feet and worship, listen, hear from Him before they did anything. Oh, I pray we will be with Him, know His heart, find out what He would have us do rather than wasting our time. {See Ephesians 5:15}

I find it interesting that there will be those who lead others astray in the last time, those who do signs even, in several places it says they even cause fire to come down in front of everyone. It seems pretty amazing, yet since one who has seen something that no one has ever seen before to describe it to someone else would be difficult. {See Revelation 13:13-14, again Matthew 24:4-8, and Revelation 11:3-13} 

Let us be very careful so we might enter into the rest God has waiting for us. Rather than we trying in our own efforts to attain to the way of life He has for us, we must go to Him, moment by moment to hear His voice, to do His will. He will show us. Those who ignore Him and go their own way, sadly they have chosen their fate. If we are not careful in these days to come, to watch for Jesus coming, to know Him so intimately that it will not overtake us like a thief {see 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 , 2 Peter 3:10, Revelation 3:3} we will find ourselves being deceived by the world and the things of this world. If we don't take the time to sit at Jesus feet, to know Him, to sit in the lap of love, rather being taken up by the world and the things of this world, distractions will come and we will not know. Deception will come and we will be lead astray. {See 2 Thessalonians 2:7-11} If we don't follow Christ, we will follow the beast, we will be apart from Christ and trying to figure out life on our own, refusing help. {See Revelation 16:2,10-11} We will either serve God, or we won't serve Him. {See Matthew 6:24, Ecclesiastes 5:10} The path is narrow, if we are not serving Christ, we will be deceived.  If we love Christ, we will not be satisfied until we have more and more of Him. Are we content we are living peaceful lives? Or are we longing for something more? We can go deeper and deeper with Christ, do we go to Him to find those rivers overflowing from our innermost beings? 

We get to live a wonderful way, living as close to Jesus as we possibly can. Sitting at His feet, listening to every word He says. Is He our precious treasure? Do we await His coming as though He is our beloved? Is He our first love? Can we say like David in the Psalms, "Nothing I desire in Heaven and earth compares to you." {See Psalms 73} Oh I pray our devotion to Jesus would be that pure, simple devotion, not letting any distractions get in the way. The world is going down quickly, all that can be shaken will be shaken. Will we be a part of the Kingdom that cannot be shaken?