Today’s Devotional Written By A Young Woman That Is Tending The Garden Of Her Life: Mrs. Tracy A. Dixon
Is it Time to Leave the Flock?
Proverbs 18:24 (New Living Translation)
24 There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.
Proverbs 18:24 (Amplified Bible)
24The man of many friends [a friend of all the world] will prove himself a bad friend, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
Today's message in the music comes from Jill Scott's song "Getting in the Way". The chorus says: you're getting in the way of what I'm feeling. Over the past month or so I've witnessed several people who have allowed friends to come in and distract what God was doing in their life. Not that the friends were plotting and planning on purpose, but just the simple fact they moved the focus of God from the other individual.
I remember hearing this common story with a twist. One day in class a teacher asks a student if he would follow his friends if they decided to jump off a bridge . The normal answer is no, however, he said "yes, because that’s where the party would be". How many times in our lives have we jumped over the bridge to fit in with the crowd only to find out they were drowning and just didn't want us to know it? How many times have we followed people we thought had our back, only to find they were the first to stab us in our backs?
Sometimes your walk with Christ will require you to cut some things and some people off if they are getting in the way of what your spirit is feeling. If you are trying to get closer to God, you won't get there hanging out with people who are "playing with God". If you are trying to be more obedient to God, you won't get there kicking it with people who think its okay to misuse God's grace. Its great to have friends, but its greater to have God. I'm learning that the closer I really get to God, the smaller my circle becomes.
Today as you look at the flock you're flying with, are they helping you get to God, or pulling you further from Him? If you are hanging with people who are not walking upright before the Lord, is your light overtaking their darkness, or is their darkness dimming your light. No man, woman or material thing should ever be given the opportunity to get in the way of you and your relationship to God. As we edge closer to the new year, this is a great time to cut out the weeds in your life.
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