“You never wanted a better mobile phone until you got your first mobile phone!”

That’s a statement my pastor used to say. Think about it; before you ever had your first mobile phone, all you wanted was a mobile phone. Make, model, used or new was not much of an issue, all you wanted was a working mobile phone. I still remember the first mobile phone I owned, a used Ericson 1018, huge thing that looked like a walkie-talkie and it felt like I had gone to heaven and come back. That first night I hardly slept, I was fidgeting with that phone most of the night but a few weeks later, I wanted a better model.

We live in a generation unlike any other before us, the advances we have made in technology and the improvements we have made in the quality of life are amazing. If someone who lived in the 1800 came back to life today, they would be astonished by some of the everyday things we hardly think about.

So, where am I going with this? Good things can be a distraction towards serving God and fulfilling his purposes. Every day, there is a new thing that comes up. New tech, a new form of convenience, a new discovery, it is hard to keep up. That in itself becomes a distraction because the next new good thing becomes the focus and we lose contentment with what we have.

When the desire for more and better becomes the driving force in our lives then we lose focus and serving God becomes secondary. We end up looking at God as some Santa who furnishes us with all these good things and the more we have the more we think that we are so blessed. Our relationship with him becomes secondary to all the good things.

One of the weapons the enemy uses is the lust of the eyes and this is so evident in this generation because he is distracting many from developing a relationship with God or even fulfilling their God given purpose by making them focus on all the good things. Jesus said, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his soul?”

If we are to fulfill the end time mandate that is upon us, we must get our eyes off all the good things the world has to offer and fix our eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

1 Timothy 6:6-11 AMP                                                                                                               ⁶ But godliness actually is a source of great gain when accompanied by contentment [that contentment which comes from a sense of inner confidence based on the sufficiency of God]. ⁷ For we have brought nothing into the world, so [it is clear that] we cannot take anything out of it, either. ⁸ But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.