I have read the letter from Paul to Timothy countless times and never have I read this part until last night.  For the first time God was opening up my eyes to this one line that had so much depth and meaning in it.  I can’t find much about Demas in the bible but we do know that this scripture was placed here for a reason.

Demas, having loved this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
2 Timothy 4:10

This really got me thinking about what was going on here and why Paul puts this one line in the bible.  He talks about how all the others have left him to go back to these other churches to help out and continue to spread the gospel.  But not Demas, he was put on blast for taking off and going back to Thessalonica.  But the interesting thing that really stood out to me was why.

Paul tells us that he “loved this present world”.  His eyes were fixed on the tangible, the here and now and couldn’t see past what was in front of him.  He might have questioned what he signed up for when he ventured into this Christianity stuff and when it began to get hard,he might of said it wasn’t worth it.  To him, it wasn’t worth all the persecution and sacrifices that came with following after Jesus.  This discipleship was just to hard and not as rewarding as he might have thought.  It could have been easier when he was living for things of this world, but his mind wasn’t set on the future and the things above.  So we are told that he deserted Paul and moved on.

I believe that this was put in the bible to show us that there will be many people who turn to Christianity because it looks enticing.  You see people who have joy and this idea of going to heaven sounds good, but when it comes down to surrendering your life to Jesus, people flee.  They take their eyes off the eternal and fix them back on things of this world like sex, money, popularity, job, school, entertainment, food and other things that will soon pass away.

Not everybody will choose the life that God has called us to live.  Some will try it and figure it isn’t worth it.  Some don’t even want to think about it.  But the truth of the matter is that we are but a vapor and any trial we face is better with God.  How we live our life has to be filled with the hope that we have in Jesus Christ.  And that is not only the hope of today, but the hope for our eternity.  When you keep your eyes focused on the love of Jesus, things of this world become less important and the journey becomes better through the faith that God gives you.