Enticing Adventures

March 16, 2010
Daily Scriptural Reading: Deuteronomy 11-13
Focal Passage: Deuteronomy 13:3,4,6-8

Yesterday my son texted me to ask me to attend the ASU basketball game with him tonight. He informed me that he had found some tickets for the game that were in our affordable price range. You must know I love basketball. I could literally hang out in a game all day long and be quite content (as long as someone brought me 3 meals during the day). I also enjoy spending time with my kids. Those two things put together, his offer was very enticing to me, however, untimely. I had finished paying bills early that morning and I did not want to spend any extra money for a few days. I was facing a huge dilemma, an internal struggle: do I attend the game with my son (and invetiably spend money) or tell him no and save the money? So...what did I choose? Let's just say Go, Devils!

In the focal passage today, God tells his people to beware of enticing people (and some of these people will be prophets, family members, spouses) that will try to lead us astray from God Himself. These people could mean well, but God says He will use these opportunities to "test" our true desire to know Him. We are instructed to follow the Lord with all our heart and all our soul. As this passage relates to us today, we can see that the world offers us Christian books to read, movies to attend, television programming with 100+ channels, sports activities and games to keep all of us entertained and physically active, not to mention the secular humanist worldview on topics such as politics, education, law, ethics, religion, history, science...and the list goes on and on. This things seem enticing and draw us into a web of deception. This web of deception leads us away from spending time with God and to gently accept the things that our society tells us are desirable. I encourage you to set aside a time in your day to read your Bible, to pray, and to reflect upon what God has taught you about what should be important in your life. Ask God at the end of the day if you have been enticed to follow Him or to follow someone different.

The enticing adventure God wants us to join Him in is so much more valuable than a $15.00 ticket to some basketball game. Don't trade away the adventure and life of John 10:10 for something fleeting that the world offers to you for a moment.