Who Or What Are You Gonna’ Love?

Hello weekend readers … I know this title is interesting but it is also a question that begs us to think of “who/what do we really love?” Yes, we can say spouse, kids, family, best friends, etc., but think of how often you use the word ‘love’ in your daily speech. Here’s a few that come to mind, and obviously, there are lots of options of who “it” is!

  • I just love that ____________
  • Don’t you just love it?
  • I’m just in love with _______, I just have to have it!

It’s so easy to love material things, TV shows and actors, etc. Isn’t it easy to fall prey when you’re cruising online on Amazon, Costco, Walmart, Kohls, Sportmans, etc. You see it, you love it and you buy it—or yearn for it if the cost is not in the budget. Let’s face it, we love “stuff” – period.

When Al and I sold our home in 2019 and went full time from 1650 square ft home to a 45’ 5th wheel RV it was amazing to see the accumulation of all the “stuff we loved.” As we slimmed down the “stuff” we constantly asked one another, “where did this come from—when was the last time we used it—have we ever used it at all?” and so on. Oh the “stuff we loved and just gotta’ have.”

Sadly the stuff we accumulate often becomes a major part of our identity and instead of yearning for God, we have become too friendly with “the world” – not good, not good at all. Why? Because this love is not God’s love, and we’ve become “friends with the world.” That is not the friendship God tells us in the Bible. Using The Message translation, 1 John 2: 15-17 is pretty succinct:

Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods.
Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.
Practically everything that goes on in the world—
wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself,
wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father.
It just isolates you from him.
The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out
but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

Eugene Peterson’s Message Bible really nails it, doesn’t it? We are just “wanting, wanting, wanting for more but unless our “wanting” is for Christ what we want is just “stuff” that, according to Scriptures, again using The Message from Matthew 6: 19-21, 24, says: “Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or—worse!—stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being. You can’t worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you’ll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can’t worship God and Money both.”

Me thinks we have a problem with our “love priorities!” So how do we put our love in the right priority? A friend of mine, Dr. Wendy Blight, who writes, teaches, blogs, etc., shared these ideas that I pass on to you with her blessing:

  • Don’t become friends of the world
  • Don’t give in to the world
  • Don’t fall in love with the world

Those are three very easy things to slip into and extremely difficult to get out of! A friendship with the world can arouse a “love” for things you can’t afford so you buy on credit, work more to buy more, or become frustrated and envious of those who can purchase what you cannot.

We must let God’s Word interrupt this “sinful friendship” before we get in too deep. Remind yourself of whose you are—God’s child—and because of this the fruit of God’s Spirit indwells in us. And that Spirit will keep your thoughts captive to God’s Word and not the world’s constant clattering. Knowing this, we can take one-step-at-a-time in growing closer to God. It is only then we find ourselves growing a deeper love with God and others, serving our Creator instead of the “world’s creations.”

O heavenly Father, give me eyes to see
where I’m more in love with the world than with You. Rise up full and strong
in me—body, soul and mind.
Empower and equip me to choose
You over this world and to find my
happiness and contentment
in You and You alone.
In Jesus’ Name I ask it, Amen.