We are bombarded by many external influences in our lives. We can be influenced by our coworkers, peers, family, and society, just to name a few. However, Jesus is the only influencer who always has our best interest in mind and loves us so much that He died that we may live forever.
Jesus is known as the good shepherd who would drop everything to go look for one of His lost sheep. We can do our part by being good sheep and not straying from Him and following false shepherds or distractions. If we do get lost, we should make it easy for Jesus to find us and stop running from Him.
When we drift away from our protector, we make ourselves vulnerable to being killed by Satan the wolf. Satan loves to create distractions that would lead us astray and into his claws. I would say that the three big distractions today are lust, anger, and sloth. Pornography is a distraction that teaches us that we should look at others as objects instead of as children of God. It hurts relationships and trains us use people instead of giving ourselves to another. Anger is another common distraction today. While it’s ok to be angry about unjust or immoral things going on in the world, we need to try to be a positive influence that seeks to build up and not tear down. Anger weighs us down and makes it harder to love. Life is too short to be upset about everything. Speaking of life being too short, how are we spending the time that we are given? There are so many things we can do with our time. Smartphones, video games, and technology in general all suck us into a world that isn’t important in the long run. We should choose to do things that will build spiritual wealth and we will find ourselves spiritually wealthy.
If we have run away and are lost, stop running and call out to Jesus and He will find us. It’s only when we continue to run from Him that we stay lost. He loves us and will rejoice when we return to Him. There will be more rejoicing over one lost sheep who is found than ninety nine sheep who haven’t strayed. Come back; you are missed.
