Title: Who Do You Love?/ Topic: Loving God

Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 21; Jeremiah 24; Jeremiah 27; Psalm 118; 1 John 2

Scripture: 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.

Observation: There is a lot to love in this world. If we believe in God and want to obey Him, how can we tell if we are "slipping" into loving the world and letting that love compete with our love of God? It's so easy to delude ourselves, especially if we have established good spiritual disciplines like regular church attendance and Bible reading, into thinking we love God when really, we love the world. I think we need to regularly check ourselves to see if we are loving the world more than God because John makes it clear that these two "loves" cannot co-exist.

Application: The best ways to do this are: 1) Stay in accountable relationships with spiritual people we trust and ask them to tell us if they see us slipping. Others can often see more clearly than we can what is happening in our relationship with God. 2) Examine what we think about most. Are the proponderance of our thoughts directed toward God, His will for us, and WWJD type questions? 3) What does our conversation consist of? If the majority of our conversation with others consists of talking about ourselves (v. 16 - boasting of what he has and does) or about eating, fashion, entertainment or other worldly pleasures, then we need to do some repenting. It's so easy to love the world more than God if we aren't vigilant in examining our hearts.

Prayer: Father, thank you for wanting to keep us out of danger and giving us these warnings and instructions to keep us strong. May they be more than words we read. Help us to be doers of the Word and not hearers only.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.