Sunday, May 9: Do you crave those neon lights?

Everywhere I turn, people are looking to fill their own appetites, desires and lusts. As Christians, we are not perfect, either, but hopefully, we are at least looking to follow what the Lord tells us in His Word, as He reminded us in John 14:15 when He said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” I was saddened to read of the Baptist minister, George Rekers, who hired a gay hustler to accompany him on a European vacation. The internet already is filled with commentaries of Rekers’ hypocrisy. Yet even while reading the stories, I was reminded that we are not perfect, just forgiven. Even so, it is still sad when our choices destroy the witness the Lord has given us. Personally, I am glad not to be a public figure, as I certainly have made bad decisions in my Christian walk that could have damaged the Lord’s witness in my life to a greater degree.


When God created the world, He certainly saw what it was going to become. He saw each choice that every individual would make throughout eternity. And though He made us to know Him and to love Him as He loves us, He also knew how few actually would come to that place in their lives. On a typical Saturday or Sunday morning, we see fewer and fewer people attending church. Included in that number are many people who attend church but don’t know the Lord at all. There are surely more people in a bar on a Saturday night than a church on Sunday morning. And still, the Lord allows it all to continue! How it must break His heart to know what blessings He could bestow upon everyone who came to Him!


He created us all, yet most don’t even acknowledge they were created. They would rather take credit for their own beauty, talents or accomplishments, as if they had anything to do with His gifts. He gave us all that we are. God is so big, and though we can see Him everywhere, most can’t find Him!


13 “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Matthew 7:13-15


They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, but the stars in the sky that God created are much brighter. Would you rather walk down the broad way that leads to financial success, stardom and ego-building, or would you rather follow the quiet, narrow path that points to God? A friend of mine once took his children up on the top of a mountain at night, looking down to the city lights below. He asked them what was more beautiful, the lights that man created, with the hand of the prince of this earth, or the lights above that God created. Keep your eyes on the things of God and desire what He has for you! That is all you could ever want or need!