Loving the World

Love. When I think of what it means to love something, I think of the stereotypical loving feelings that which are joyful, warm and positive. Rarely do I think of true love in a negative aspect. The Bible probably references love at least one million times. I don't know that for a fact since I haven't counted but I'm sure it's a close guess. In fact, I think it's safe to say that the majority of the Bible is all about love. In it we are taught many things such as the true definition of love, that God IS love, that we are to love one another and the list goes on and on to even including and warning us that we are to not love the things or customs of this world. For example, 1 John 2:15 warns us, "Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you".

I will admit that I often say that I love many things that are of this world- I love pizza, I love a new pair of wedges in the Spring, I love vodka sodas, I love feeling the sunshine on my face, I love baseball (just kidding, I don't love baseball), but you get it the point- love is a descriptive word that is thrown around loosely in my vocabulary when explaining my affinity for possessions or a certain lifestyle that makes me happy and improves my quality of life. I don't think that it's bad or sinful because I know in my heart that I don't love them unconditionally- never would I die for them, nor do I allow them to have control over my life or my thoughts (okay, maybe the shoes... just kidding!). Regardless, I believe that God wants us to enjoy our lives and experience love and joy for these things so long as we don't confirm to this world, allowing our love for our them to dominate our hearts, ultimately causing us to loose focus on our one true love, God.

While I will freely admit my love for things that paint a warm and happy picture, I'm not so keen on admitting that I have found myself being consumed by other matters of this world that aren't as happily depicted. Often times, we allow our thoughts and desires for things that the world says we need to have take control of our lives and dominate our hearts, consuming all of our love. For example, we allow ourselves to be in love with money, power, having a worldly beautiful body, expensive possessions and an overall perfect, quintessential life to the point that we will do anything to attain them. We stay up late at night anxiously worrying ourselves with fear of how our future is going to play out. We stay in overly stressful jobs that we don't necessarily like because we love the money it pays and the social status it provides. We starve and beat ourselves up because we obsess over having the perfect image. We do all of this because even though these thoughts and obsessions don't feel like the stereotypical heartfelt forms of being in love, we are essentially in love and are infatuated with possessions and lifestyles that are of this world and not of God. We have conformed.

I don't believe it's sinful to have goals for successful careers, financial stability, a clean bill of health and a truly wonderful, enjoyable life because God wants us to be successful in His plans for us. He wants us to experience joyfulness and happiness, while having His peace in our hearts. What He doesn't want is for us to loose sight of His plan and let our love and our anxious thoughts for ways to achieve worldly possessions or a wonderful, worldly life steal our love for Him. So when you feel yourself slipping and beginning to loose sight of what's important, remind yourself that you have the love of the Father in you. All else is secondary to that love. When we put God first in our hearts, He will transform the way we think and He will provide all of our hearts' desires.

"Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect". Romans 12:2

 

Take delight in The Lord, and He will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to The  Lord. Trust Him, and He will help you. Psalms 37:4-5