The iPhone's Lesson About Devotional Life

Several years ago, Apple introduced the iPhone and the world was shocked: Where were the buttons? Where was the keyboard? How can a phone be a phone if it looks like...a screen?

Yet the iPhone had blockbuster sales, and when Fortune interviewed Steve Jobs in 2008 to find out why, Jobs had a surprising reply: “People think that focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done.”

As Christians, we say “yes” to Christ. Like the merchant in the parable, we would sell all we have to purchase the pearl of great value (Matthew 13:44-46). But...do we actually do that? Or do we try to say “yes” to Christ...and yes to a hundred other good ideas as well?

Task for the week: Find three good things that are keeping you from focusing more on faith and add them to your don’t-do list.

[Today's Memory Verse]
"'YOU WILL KEEP ON HEARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE; (Matt 13:14)"