There are many good brothers and sisters sidetracked by all sorts of seemingly worthwhile pursuits, but they are deceived. They are deceived by their churches, their spouses, their friends, their dearest and best relations. Christ has a message that addresses this, if we will only hear it: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Mammon is funny word. But we serve it when we seek after the things of this world, even if we try to compensate for our lack of faith by attacking something else of this world. Let us center on Christ. He was hated by the world because he exposed its deeds as evil. We can do the same only if we abide in Christ. We don’t do this by attacking everything that moves; we do this by conforming our lives to his and speaking only his words. That’s enough of a task in and of itself. We will find ourselves having a word of grace that salts every sacrifice. But, we must not look somewhere else, even to a ‘cause,’ or we will surely be off balance or become totally sidetracked.

- Chris Simonson