Avoid Distractions - Demas

Demas has deserted me because he loves the things of this life and has gone to Thessalonica.

2 Timothy 4:10

In an effort to stop a wave of petty theft in the former Soviet Union, authorities placed armed guards around key factories. At one Leningrad plant, a guard stopped a man driving a wheelbarrow containing a suspicious-looking sack.

“All right,” the guard said, “what do you have there?”

“Just sawdust,” he replied, then emptied a sack to show that he spoke truly. The same scene repeated itself every night for a week until the guard’s curiosity got the best of him.

“I know you,” the guard said. “Tell me what you’re smuggling out of here and I’ll let you go.”

“Wheelbarrows, my friend,” came the answer. “Wheelbarrows.”

One of the devil’s most powerful weapons is distraction. He used that weapon effectively against a once-faithful believer named Demas.

At one time, Demas was a dependable partner in Paul’s ministry. In Paul’s brief letter to Philemon from a Roman prison, he wrote, “Epaphras, my fellow prisoner in Christ Jesus, sends you his greetings. So do Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke, my coworkers” (Philemon 1:23-24).

Paul didn’t use the word coworker lightly. At some point, Demas had greatly assisted Paul’s ministry, and Paul considered him a dependable friend during some of his most difficult times.

But in his letter to the young Ephesian pastor Timothy, Paul’s words about Demas convey hurt, betrayal, and abandonment: “Demas has deserted me.”

Demas apparently didn’t leave Paul to pursue other ministry opportunities or to see his family. He left, Paul wrote, because he loved “the things of this life.”

Whatever Demas’s reason for deserting Paul, he was distracted from his important work of serving Paul in his ministry and faithfully following Jesus.

What distractions keep you from fully and freely serving Jesus? What will you do about them? The enemy loves to distract you, but when you keep your eyes on Jesus Christ, you will avoid being sidetracked in your life of faith.