Money Connection
Choose Your Love
Scripture Reading: 1 John 2:15-17
Key Verse: 1 John 2:17
And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.
As we finish out April’s devotional, I want to share with you one of the most challenging passages of scripture, for me anyway. Our scripture reading is from 1 John; I hope you read it. It starts out saying not to love the world. For me, without going any further, I assume that means don’t commit to the sins of this world; I think I can do that. However, this passage gets very specific on what it means when it tells us not to love the world. It lists three areas not to love:
- The cravings for physical pleasure.
- A craving for everything we see, and
- Pride in our achievements and possessions.
Wow, these three hit all the spots that most of us experience every day in one form or another.
Let’s start by looking at the word “love” that John uses in this passage. The Greek word is “agapao” which could be translated, in a literal sense, love much. In other words, I think John is telling us not to love these things so much that it crowds out the love of God in our lives. Another way of saying it would be that our love for God should be so much stronger than our love for these things of the world that we would never choose them over what God would want us to do. Our flesh is going to enjoy being served; we will like things that we see in this world, and there is a pride that is not sin that we can have in our achievements. However, we must be careful in our evaluations of this balance between the world and eternal values; it’s easy to deceive ourselves. The Bible reminds us that our hearts are easily deceived, so we must lean heavy on the Holy Spirit to direct our paths.
When a person is careless and lives for all the things of this world, one day that person will come to the end of this life. It is at the end of life that reality hits us. The worldly stuff, indeed, does fade away, just like John wrote. Suddenly, the eternal matters truly matter! Let’s worship the Giver of gifts more than the gifts.
Father, I open my heart for your evaluation. If I love the things of this world too much, please reveal it. In Jesus name, amen.