Holy Week Devo 2024

Intro:

You may be distracting yourself to death.

I had to start by saying that because the average attention span is only about 8.25 seconds!

Did you know that is almost 1 second shorter than the attention span of a goldfish?

We have distractions from every day life demands like work and chores and errands, but then add on smart phones, social media and streaming services. To top it all of we are in an election year.

There is no shortage of distractions that demand our attention every moment of every day.

Unfortunately, humans are getting better and better at distractions and worse and worse at paying attention. This leads to missing out on significant moments with our families and friends. We fail to appreciate the beautiful details of the world around us.

But most importantly, we end up missing out on the LIFE that God intends for us to live each day!

This is Monday of Holy week and it was on this day about 2000 years ago that Jesus was entering into Jerusalem for the final week of his life on earth.

As he was on his way, we see a moment where Jesus is weeping over Jerusalem. He saw this city that many may call vibrant. There was a busy marketplace, a large political and military force, and it was a central hub of culture at that time. But Jesus wept because he said they were completely unaware of the things to come. They were comfortable, complacent and distracted. They weren’t concerned by anything but what was right around them. But Jesus knew two things.

They were heading for destruction and He was heading for the cross.

As Jesus enters Jerusalem we see a scene play out where he clears out some major distractions from among the Jewish people to hopefully capture their attention and help them focus on what He was about to do.

We see it in Luke 19:45-48, talking about Jesus it says:

Luke 19:45–48 CSB

He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling, and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!” Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people were looking for a way to kill him, but they could not find a way to do it, because all the people were captivated by what they heard.

This area of the temple was meant to be a place where all the nations, not just Jewish people, could come and worship. But instead of being a place of worship it was a place of greed, manipulation and robbery. The religious leaders had become distracted by trying to gain more power, money and status instead of leading people to worship the one true God.

Jesus comes in and clears the temple out from the sin and brokenness that had corrupted it and begins teaching every day about God’s Kingdom coming to rescue and heal humanity! The religious and political leaders hated Jesus for all of this and let their distractions determine their actions. They began planning to kill Jesus.

At the same time, the common people, the lower class, outcasts, the most poor and broken people of that day loved and listened to Jesus!

Why? Well, practically speaking they were the least distracted and the most desperate for Him!

This Holy week we must deal with anything that will try to distract us from worshiping God and being a part of what He is doing. Jesus would go to the cross and die and raise from the dead so that we could be saved, healed, and brought into God’s plan of restoring all of creation.

Let’s stop distracting ourselves to death, and begin walking in the LIFE of Jesus.

This holy week, pray through and take steps to eliminate distractions so you can worship God freely and live out the eternal life that Jesus came to bring you!