Word and Reading Wednesday - "Taken Up Too Much with These Things"

 I have not done a very good job the past couple years studying my word of the year. I spend a lot of time praying and asking God what my word of the year will be. And every year I come to the end and think, "Oh, yeah I did pick that word. I forgot." 

This year I am being more intentional to truly look at my word al least once a week. I wrote last week that this year my word is SET. It comes from two verses that God led me to.

I want to write them here every week so I put them before my eyes. I hope to have them memorized by the end of the year.

Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. SET your mind on things above, not on the things that are on the earth. 

Colossians 3:1-2

SET a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to practice deeds of wickedness with men who do iniquity; and do not let me eat of their delicacies.

Psalm 141:3-4

I knew when I got up this morning that I had committed to write about my word of the year on Wednesdays. I thought to myself, "Well, God hasn't given me anything this week about my word so I will just write about something else." And then I opened up my Voices From The Past devotional and God answered me in a wonderful way.

The devotional today was from Thomas Manton and it fell in line with both of the verses and word I picked this year.

Here is what he wrote:

"The great distance between heaven and earth shall not hinder our communion with God, since we have a friend above. Therefore it is very comfortable now to say: 'Our Father in heaven', that is our gracious and reconciled Father, in and by Christ. Since we have a Father in heaven, let us look up to heaven often. Let me especially press you to this with an eye of faith; look within the veil, and when you come to pray, see God in heaven, and Christ at his right hand. The great work of faith is to see him that is invisible, and the great duty of prayer is to get a sight of God in heaven, and Christ at his right hand. A child is never so well but when he is in his mother's lap or under his father's wing. So with us in the presence of God, and getting into the bosom of our heavenly Father. Love it for his sake. O, let us not forget our heavenly Father's house. As we draw home quickly, let us grow more heavenly-minded every day; and seek the things above. The reason man is so haunted with the world, and the things of worldly interest and concern when he comes to prayer, is because his heart is taken up too much with these things."

This is my prayer. 

That I would seek to be more heavenly-minded day by day and seek those things that bring Him glory. More of Him and less of me. That I could say by this time next year that my mind was taken up less with worldly things and more things that pertain to God. 





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