PROVERBS 28:6

Better the poor whose walk is blameless

    than the rich whose ways are perverse.

TO PONDER

This kind of wisdom seems to have been lost to many people in developed western countries and cultures. We seem to be increasingly enamoured by those who make it big in the world of business, despite the number of people they might have taken advantage of along the way. We seem to spend a lot of time as a society (generally speaking) scrolling on our phones listening to those who have a large social media following, simply because they found a way to get paid for having an opinion.

Our television screens are full of shows like, 'The Real Housewives of...' franchise or 'Love Island', or even 'Survivor', which ultimately encourage their participants to stab one another in the back and to create as much drama as possible by acting towards one another in ways that none of us would welcome or tolerate in our own home or families (at least I hope we wouldn't).

Our society seems to be increasingly happy to idolise and look up to immoral and perverse behaviour, and looks at those of us who still want to live acording to and upholding the teachings of Jesus simply as old fashioned killjoys, who just don't know how to have a good time.

But if that's how your life as a Christian feels to you, then I don't think you're doing it right. Sure, there are times when walking the way of Jesus is hard, we should expect that, he said that it would be. And yet, there is also great freedom in walking through life as a disciple of Jesus. There is freedom to experience life in a different way. Not where we do whatever we want, but where we get to be who we were supposed to be, when we experience life the way it was meant to be experienced, in it's fulness and within the parameters in which we were designed to experience it, in a relationship with the one true and living God. That is not a dull life, if you earnestly seek to follow the plans God has for you each day, it can be a life of adventure and mind-blowing encounters of God at work in the world at almost every turn.

PRAYER:Lord God, I know that I often wake up and set off to achieve my own plans for the day. Right now, I place my day in your hands and ask that you would help me see your agenda for my day and help me to walk in it and see you at work in and through my life. Amen

Today's devotion written by Mathew von Stanke, LifeWay Newcastle.