Don’t do wrong for short-sighted gain (2 Peter 2:15-16) || Morning Mindset Christian Daily Devotional and Prayer

0:00Hey there, friends, when someone says that another person is short-sighted, what are they talking about? Have you ever given much thought to that phrase? When we say someone is short-sighted, we mean they're not looking down the road, they're not looking at the long-term consequence of whatever it is that's going on. Welcome to the morning mindset. This is our opportunity to get our minds aligned with the truth of God's word for this day. We're going to be looking at 2nd Peter chapter 2 verses 15 through 16 today as we continue hearing what Peter is describing as false teachers and what they are like and how we can identify them. But before we do, I want to remind you, the morning mindset is only one of many podcasts that we publish through morning mindset media. Another is called God fearing kids and the parents who raise them. So in other words, this is about parenting and how Christian parents can lead their children

1:01to love and know the Lord for themselves. You can find out more about that podcast by going to godfearingkids.com. You also should be able to find that link in the description for this episode. All right, before we begin the 2nd Peter chapter 2, I want to invite you to pray with me that the Holy Spirit will actually be the one to do the teaching today. Lord God, I am asking you to take me out of the way and you do the teaching. Through me, Holy Spirit, this is your scripture. Please teach it to us. According to your truth, we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, 2nd Peter chapter 2 15 through 16. In speaking about false teachers, Peter says, for saking the right way, they have gone astray. You know, to stop for a moment and think about simplicity of that statement, they have forsaken the right way, which is God's way, the way God intends for people to live. And by doing that, by forsaking it, they have gone astray, so they're off the proper

2:03path. Okay, then he goes on. He says they have followed the way of bail him, the son of Bayor, who loved gain for wrongdoing. Now pause for a moment. They'll sound like Lord of the Rings names, don't they? But actually, this is from the Old Testament, where this guy, Baylam, was a sorcerer of sorts, a prophet of sorts, but not a prophet of God. And he was hired by someone to go and bring curses on God's people. And it says, Baylam, the son of Bayor, who loved gain from wrongdoing. So in other words, he was a prophet for hire. You could hire him to put curses on people, that kind of thing. And he was rebuked for his own transgression. A speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet's madness. So what he's talking about is actually what happened in that story. Baylam is writing his own donkey to this place to bring about this curse on Israel.

3:05And an angel of the Lord is standing in the way. And the donkey keeps trying to go a different direction and Baylam gets upset and he beats the donkey. And God gives the donkey a voice and rebukes Baylam for doing this thing that he should not be doing. Now what is Peter's point? He's saying, when we are so bent on doing wrong, for our own gain, we are putting ourselves into a position where if God is going to change our hearts, turn us around, get our attention, he's going to have to do it through a very dramatic and drastic thing. Now Baylam's case, it was a donkey speaking to him, what's it going to be in our case? Sometimes it can be very painful. And so friends, the moral of the story here is don't do wrong for short-sighted gain. You see, it is short-sighted to do evil in order to gain because evil as a way of catching up with you. God, we ask you to give us your wisdom and give us a deep indensel in the Holy Spirit.

4:11To restrain ourselves from going after wrong for the sake of personal gain, enable us to recognize it when it's coming up and none of us is above it, Lord. We can always do something untoward or unfitting because it would benefit us, Lord, purify us, our bent toward this and enable us instead to represent you well in this world. By your grace and by the power of Jesus' name, we claim it. Amen. As our episode today wraps up, let me remind you of just a couple of things. First off, if you would like to know more about what it means to be a follower of Jesus and how you actually make sure that is true of you, you can go to morningmightshipmedia.com slash Meet Jesus. That URL is in the description of this episode. And finally, let me remind you about

5:13that podcast that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode. That podcast and a lot of other stuff are included on our website, which you can find at morningmightshipmedia.com. You'll find that link in the description of this episode also. Thanks, friends. I'll talk to you again tomorrow. The theme music used in the morningmightship is entitled Kings trailer by Kevin McLeod and is used under Creative Commons license zero.