Don't Bother Me
To the Church in Laodicea
14"To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation. 15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.
18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. 19 Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. 20 Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. 21 To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. 22 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
Tommy's Thoughts:
I have to admit if it’s not because of trials and problem I would have not drawn close to God. After a year I accepted Christ, the feeling of awe and zeal for God died out slowly. It’s a quiet, slow process how I turned into a lukewarm Christian. It started out by little things like skipping daily bible reading and devotion; then forgetting about prayer and quiet time with God; absent from Sunday services because of tiredness, works and other so-called more critical activities.
And the next thing I know, I didn’t even give a single thought of God in everything I do! Then all those negligence piled up and hardened my heart to a point where Christianity became totally irrelevant to my life. I started becoming more self-satisfied and sufficient. It doesn’t take long before I started dabbling with wrongful things and worst, taunting God with prideful words like “I’m still fine and ok without You!” God would have easily ‘destroyed’ me if He is not patient, loving and slow to anger.
Later, things started to fall apart and turn bad at every corner one by one; and yet I’m clueless and puzzled to what have gone wrong! All those complacency I’ve built up so far evaporated in seconds when all these problems started to surface. Only then, I started to hear the ‘knockings’. But the truth is, Jesus has been knocking ever since day one.
Dear Lord, thank You again for Your forgiveness and the loving discipline You have shown to me in the past, helping me out of my uncaring attitude. Without them, I would have jeopardized everything in my life. Lord, work in my heart and help me to draw near to You again and again through daily devotion, confession, service, worship and studying of Your Word. Father, keep me also aware of the difference between temporarily satisfactions of the world and the everlasting future in Christ’s Kingdom. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.
Bee's Thoughts:
Dear Lord,
I am very tired today from my work. I am having headache now. Yet I still want to open my heart door to You and not give excuse for my tiredness. Please come into my heart and be my strength and my guide. I commit my life, my work, my relationship to You. Renew my strength when I wake up in the morning so that I may have good fellowship with You again.
Please also grant Tommy wisdom in his work tomorrow. Grant him strength too as he rise in the morning. Let him devote his time for You even inspite of his business and tiredness. The same goes for me.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
.......the devotion of Tommy & Bee
