Caught up in the Moment

I have the problem of getting caught up in the moment. I have had to work on having a long term out look on life. If I go shopping I can easily walk out a store with too much stuff. This can leave me having spent too much money on stuff I don’t really need. I get caught in the moment and the cash register gets too much of my money. I remember getting my first credit card fresh out of college. It was a capital one visa card. I went to game stop and bought multiple video games. I took them home and played them all, and then the bill came at the end of the month. I knew the bill was coming at the end of the month, but I just allowed myself to get caught up in instant gratification. The problem was I made very little money at the church I was at, and I wasn’t thinking properly about how long it would take me to pay this stuff off. I got caught up in the moment of shopping and I paid for those games a couple of times thanks to magic a really high interest rate.

I learned a hard lesson about being focused on the moment in that video game store. The same thing can happen in our lives as a Christian and for a whole church. We can get caught up in what is happening right in front of us without considering where we are headed or what the future may hold. King David dealt with this when it came to constructing the Temple. 1st Chronicles 29 recounts what he did. He knew the Temple would need to be constructed, and says in verse 1 that this Temple, “is for the Lord God Himself.” David gave out of his own wealth and then the rest of the people gave as well to provide what was going to be needed for the next generation to actually construct the Temple. Talk about paying it forward! They would never see this Temple built, but they still wanted God to be glorified and to provide for others.

Christians today do not need to construct an elaborate Temple, but we have to pray over, think over, and accomplish things that may not be for us. It’s so easy to get absorbed into what we need. I will do this in my own life quickly. I can get so easily caught up in what I need or what I want. The problem with that is it’s the furthest thing from the example of Christ. Christ focused on what others needed and wanted. He was never caught up in the moment and focused on Himself. He was always looking to what would further the Kingdom of God. The heart of Christianity is selflessness. The sacrifice of Christ on the cross is the greatest act of selflessness in all of history.

If Christ had been caught up in the moment then He would have come down off that cross. His death was the very definition of torture, but He stayed on that old rugged cross because he was looking past the moment. He was looking to the future. He was focused on all those that His sacrifice would save. Let us as Christians today have the same focus on others and on the future. Don’t live in the middle of your wants or be captured by the moment. Look past all of that and pay it forward.