Make a Choice

DEVOTION 1 JOHN MAKE A CHOICE 1 John 2:15-17 15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world — the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does — comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. NIV How can it be said any other way, but do not love the world or anything in the world? What does this mean to love the world and the things in it? Are they things in this world that we take pleasure in, prize above all else, and are we unwilling to abandon or do without it? That seems to be the sense of this word love as used here. Do we crave for certain creature comforts? Do we have to have a new this or that; we simply cannot do without having the latest version of whatever it is? Do we get great pleasure out of just window shopping, gazing upon all the things we would like to have? Does obtaining a new thing make us feel better about ourselves and we cannot want to show it off? Do we employ all our time and energy to accrue finer things? Are we always looking and longing for the time when we can buy something newer and better than what we already have? Do we take pride in our worldly accomplishments and make sure others know how much we have done. God has told us to be in the world but not to be of it, not to participate in way the people of the world behave. We serve a higher power and must always place Him first in our lives. Yes, as the husband we must love and wives, be willing to lay our life down for her, and as wives, we must be honor and respect our husbands, be willing to set aside our own desires for his. Yes, all the relationships and all the behaviors commanded by God, we need to do, but that is, in fact, putting Him first. But when we start spending our time and energy in the accumulation of things for our own enjoyment and pleasure we might well be in danger of setting God in second place. Can we have nice things? Absolutely, without question, but we must give God all the credit for what we have and what we do. Without Him we can do nothing that is worthwhile, or have anything that matters. If we serve Him with all our heart, our mind, our soul, and our strength then He will bless us beyond our wildest dreams. He will provide all our needs, whether they are spiritual, mental, emotional, or material. Did He not say that life is more than all these things? Did He not say that He would take care of us, that we are so valuable to Him? Did He not say that what we place value on is where our heart is also? Stuff is just stuff, but God is God. Which can give us the greater joy? If we can actually acknowledge all the stuff we have and what we do is a result of the hand of God, if we can give it all up, leave it behind, or give it away, then we can pass this test spoken of here and say we do not love the world or anything in it, that we love God. So who do we love? We must make the choice.