Morning Devotion - Neither The Past Nor The Present

Daily Manna Morning Devotion – Neither The Past Nor The Present for FRIDAY 16TH OCTOBER, 2020

📜📜 TEXT: LUKE 17:20-37 📜📜

🔑📖 KEY VERSE: “Remember Lot’s wife” (LUKE 17:32).

Recently, there was a public outcry in a country in West Africa when the authorities phased out the teaching of History in secondary schools. The government was accused of retarding national development which the people believed only tips from the past could offer. They held that the past should not be forgotten altogether; it possesses some nuggets of gold that can embellish the present and guide us into a golden future.

READ: The Absence of God’s Presence in the life of the 21st Century Christian

But not all peep into the past has left behind what is helpful. It can be fatal, as it was with Lot’s wife. She flouted God’s commandment not to gaze back at soon-to-be judged Sodom and Gomorrah. She set her sight on the twin cities of sin and became a pillar of salt. As our Lord Jesus Christ taught on His prophecy on the destruction of Jerusalem and later the end of time to be signalled by His Second Coming, it would be perilous to look back in nostalgia for the things of the world we ought to forsake.

The end of the age would witness the emergence of materialistic citizens who would be consumed by such seemingly harmless social activities: marriage, commerce, pursuit of education, burials, housewarming, politics, etc. Man would not have the time for the weightier issues of holiness, solemn watch for the sign of the Son of Man and relentless evangelism to halt the rush of the unsaved into hell.

The deep lesson the Master teaches in the passage is that we should not thirst for our past, its snatches of fleeting joys notwithstanding. Nor should we be rooted in the illusory euphoria of the present, with all its celebrated glitz. None of these has the power to lead one to heaven.

Our Lord calls for an engaging daily relationship with Him through watchfulness for His return, sticking to His word, and above all, longing for our glorious future and eternity in heaven.

✍🏽 THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Don’t get stuck in the past or present; focus on your eternity with Jesus in heaven.

📜📜 THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: ISAIAH 42 – 45 📜📜

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