BH Bulletin - Friday 11 June 2021

​Thought for the Day by Stephen Demetriou ​(Youth Minister)

Distraction
 
To me, one of the scariest animals in the world, is the seagull. I’m not joking, they really freak me out!
Which makes it quite a weird choice to live in Brighton the home of the most fierce, bold and gigantic seagulls on this planet! All of us probably have different animals that scare us, don’t even get me started on cows…!
 
But back in 62-63AD (Peter’s time) one of the undisputed scariest animals was the lion. I mean nearly 30 stone of pure muscle eating up to 40kg of meat in one go, my word, that’s scary! And so, as Peter draws his first letter to a close talking of the church as God’s flock of sheep, look how he speaks about the devil.
 
1 Peter 5:8
"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour."
 
A prowling lion… If he was writing that to me, today, he might say; “your enemy the devil circles above like a seagull looking for someone to divebomb.” That would send shivers up my spine!
But Peter is getting his readers to see that they have a deadly enemy on the prowl so they are to be alert, to be watching out ready for when he might strike! And these words ring true today. We have a deadly enemy prowling determined to take us away from our God.
 
But to be ready for his strikes; we need to know what his tactics are and I think his tactics are slightly changing for the 21st Century?
 
I think the devil is using distraction as one of his main weapons against believers in this modern world. Distracting us with endless hours of Netflix to watch; taking our attention with a constant stream of YouTube videos; filling our minds with all the countless worries of this world; stealing time as we scroll listlessly on our phones. The devil would love our attention and our focus to be less on our Saviour and more on our socials, he loves it when we put off Bible reading to switch on the PS4, the devils loves a distracted heart.
 
 
And distraction works so effectively because it doesn’t look like the ferocious assault of a roaring lion.
It works so effectively because everyone else is getting involved doing those things!
It works so effectively because we fall for it almost every single time.
 
The devil dangles the carrot of distraction and we need very little persuading to take it up.
 
 
How are you being distracted from God?
What things are drawing your soul away from time with the Lord?
Where do you need to be alert this coming week?

---

Prayer news from Martin and Fran Russell

russells_prayer_news__june_2021.pdf
File Size:	472 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

---