choose now whom you will follow.

Have you ever been following someone that you shouldn’t have been?  I lived in a suburb of St Paul, MN for about seven years.  My family and I lived in the southeast suburbs and my work was north of the Twin Cities.  I had a forty minute commute to get to work.  All but about five miles were interstate.  The traffic was sporadic, but for the most part, I was on the road before there were any major backups.  But, you learn to anticipate the bottlenecks.  So, when I got near a typical bottleneck in Maplewood, I just stayed behind a large truck that obviously was caught behind traffic.  Yet, the left lane was zooming by me.  After many minutes when by following this big truck, I finally decided to try my attempt at passing in rush hour traffic.  Only to find out that there was zero traffic ahead of the large truck.  I was following something that was setting the pace 15 miles below the speed limit!  I couldn’t believe it! 

            In winter, we are told not to follow tire tracks, because they could lead you right into the ditch!  We are to be careful who we follow in life too!  If we follow the wrong thing, we may get lead down the wrong path.  When Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6:13, he taught us this line “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” This simple verse reminds us to follow Jesus because he is not going to trick us.  God isn’t like the stores that practice bait and switch where they lure us in with a sale that sells out quick only to get us to buy something more expensive.  God won’t lead us into a ditch…

            God has provided the Bible for us to follow.  We are to follow his leading.  When you learn to follow Jesus’ teachings, he will deliver you from evil and he will lead you down paths of righteousness.  Not for HIS sake, but for yours!  That is a beautiful thing.  God is not hidden somewhere and you have to find him…NO!  He is knocking on the door of your heart and you need to let him in and let him lead you today!

            Here is your lesson for today:  Who or what are you following?  Is it slowing you down?  Is this person going to lead you in the wrong direction?  Jesus taught us to pray for God to lead us and deliver us from evil.  That should be our prayer today!