1 John 2:15 ESV --- Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
It's a new day! The start of a new work week. I am so grateful to God for these things being new and I'm excited to see what adventures the Lord has in store!
Today we moved into verse 15 of chapter 2 and John brings to light a particularly dangerous pitfall to the Christian: Loving the world and the things of the world.
A lot of time was spent with confrontational mirror verses, comparing words and actions, inspecting if you're in light or darkness. Solidifying you know that you know Jesus. You're feeling good, feeling strong, and John quickly pumps the brakes with this command. Yes, command, not just a suggestion, but a Present-Active-Imperative command to the Christian.
Don't love this world and the things of this world. Nothing will break your fellowship with God quicker than taking your focus/love off Him and giving it to this world.
As I sat here recapping everything, I was struggling to express all the thoughts in my head over my time with the Lord, in this verse. I somehow wanted to make it more complex than it really is. I typed a million things and erased them. Then finally I had to stop, pray, and ask Him to guide my thoughts on this. He just put it on me to keep it simple. So...
When you know that you know Jesus, that is the time to be doubly on guard with this. It brought to mind a good quote I'd read before.
"An unguarded strength is a double weakness." - Oswald Chambers
Be alert, be on guard, be intentional every single day to make sure your time, attention, focus and your LOVE are in the proper place. You cannot serve two masters, you cannot love both and the Bible warns of the consequence right here in 1 John 2:15, the love of the Father will not be in us, if we place our love in the world and its things.
Something from Adrian Rogers came to mind, he was one of my Papa's favorite preachers to watch on TV. I sat and watched hours and hours of Adrian Roger's preaching with my him over his final years with us. One of the sermons I remember clearly was called "The Battle for Your Mind" and he said this:
"Center your mind upon Jesus and don't let the devil take away your pure-hearted devotion to Him. If we stay in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, there won't be any room for those filthy, dirty, wicked, lascivious, lustful, prideful thoughts that bombard us all. You see, God made us so that we can't think two thoughts at one time. If we're thinking what's right, we can't possibly be thinking what's wrong."
Now go on and try to think two thoughts at the same time… you can't do it! You can switch back and forth really fast between two thoughts, but you can't think them at the same time. Silly maybe but it brings up a great line of questions to close with.
What happens when you intentionally place your thoughts and love on Jesus?
What happens when you choose to fill your time with things of Him, good things, encouraging things?
Which direction will you go today if you start focused on Him and make yourself stay focused on Him all day?
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