Thursday the 26th

Matthew 21: ¹⁷And he left them and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

 

Time and time again throughout all of the Gospels we read where Jesus withdrew form the crowd, or He left his disciples, and He went off on His own. There was good reason for it. Jesus needed time to connect with His Father. He needed time to regroup, and concentrate on His task that His Father sent Him to carry out. Think about what it was like for Christ when He walked the earth. Once His  ministry took off, everywhere He went people knew Him. When He walked into town people gathered, they wanted answers, they wanted to be healed, they wanted to see this Man that everyone was talking about. It was important for Jesus to retreat because He had to make sure that He did not fall to the greatest temptation that temps us all……fame. We know that Jesus was tempted, and faced all of the trials that we face today, that is why He is so compassionate, that is why He is so forgiving, that is why no one else can understand so perfectly what it is to be you. Christ walked a mile in our shoes, before we had shoes to walk in. So we can be sure that just like any person who receives a great deal of attention, Jesus knew what it was to be tempted to drink His own kool-aid. He was a rock star in His time. Yet he never took His eye off of the goal, He never forgot that He was here to do His Father’s will, and He always reminded everyone that it was through His Father that all things are given. He was famous by the worlds standard, yet remained humble. I am convinced that He accomplished this by getting away form all of the attention so He could spend time with the one person He needed to spend time with. His Father. This is why it is so important to make sure that we are making time to get away from this world, and commune with God. In our own way, in our own lives we all have a portion of rock star status. We all have people who depend on us, we all have people that care for us, we all have people that look up to us…..yes…you do. I have seen many people fall victim to the temptress fame. They start to believe that they are the important ones, they start to believe that they are making it happen, they start to believe what they hear about themselves…..they drink their own kool-aid. They step away from God, and step closer to the mirror, they like what they see, but they forget how they got there. Make time, as much as you can to get away form the world. Find somewhere, anywhere, your car, your backyard, your bathroom if you have to, but make it a point to step away from this world every now and then. Step away from the world, so that you do not become of the world.

 

God Bless,

Brian