Do Not Love the World

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment" (Mat. 22:37,38). "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it" (Mat. 10:37-39). "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (I Jn. 2:15). Here we have a few scripture passages that tell us how to love God, and also how to not love God. First of all, Jesus made it clear that what he called 'the first and great commandment' is the calling of everyone who believes in him. That calling is simply what he said, and that is to love God wholly and completely. Then he uses the analogy of the love between parents and children, saying that if that love is stronger in someone than their love for Jesus, then they are not worthy of him. That rule applies to any and every relationship known to man, as Jesus more broadly stated in another place: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:26). Then we have the declaration of the beloved apostle that tells us that if we love this world or the things that are in it, we do not love God. So I would just like to point out mainly a few common sense rules of law so to speak, about how people demonstrate who and what they love the most; and back it up with scripture.

First of all, we are all naturally going to want to spend as much time as we can with whoever we love the most, or in some cases people spend the most time with 'whatever' they love the most. There is just no denying that people are going to spend the most time with whoever or whatever means the most to them. So it goes to good reason that whoever it is that truly loves Jesus more than anything or anyone else, is going to spend as much personal time with him as they can. If there are people or things that are on a higher priority scale with us than Jesus, as far as spending time with them, then in God's eyes we do not love him wholly and completely. Another major indicator is that whoever we love the most, we are going to seek first and foremost to do what they would like for us to be doing, and be influenced by what they want from us. If we are preferring the will and the wishes of anyone before Jesus, then we are simply compromising our love for him. And the way that we can know whether we are doing that or not is to honestly look at our lives and see who is having the most influence on what we do and how we live from day to day. Jesus gave us a really sobering admonition on this count: "Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels" (Mk. 8:38). To be ashamed of Jesus merely means to be more concerned or afraid about what someone else thinks of what we're doing, than we are about what he thinks. If we find ourselves in that trap then we will end up 'putting our candle under a bushel,' as Jesus said in another place (Mat. 5;15).

Yet another indicator of who or what we love the most is that we will have our minds on whoever that is the most. This is just another unbreakable law of nature if you want to call it that. Whatever we choose to call it, there is no question that our mind is going to be chiefly on whoever or whatever means the most to us. Isaiah gave us a good saying on that, as well as telling us the benefit of having our minds in the right place most often: "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee" (Isa. 26:3). And it stands true that whoever or whatever we think about the most is who we will be the most inclined to talk about as well. As Jesus pointedly told us: "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh" (Lk. 6:45). Whatever is most abundantly on our hearts and our minds is naturally who or what we are going to be most prone to talking about. I will say however that this particular indicator of where someone's heart is at with God, is the least dependable of all, because people can say one thing and do another very easily. Jesus said this very thing about the Pharisees in fact: "All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not" (Mat. 23:3). Another huge sign of whether someone loves God more than anything else, is how easily they are able to forgive. There is nothing greater in this life than forgiveness. Forgiveness is the motivation that brought Jesus from heaven, and eventually landed him on the cross of Calvary to die for our sins. He suffered what he did so that we could be completely forgiven in the sight of God, and have eternal life, by means of him taking our place in sin and in death (Eph. 1:7; II Cor. 5:21).

The act of being born again is actually the act of being forgiven of our sins. It really is that simple. Someone who has known how to be forgiven of much also knows how to love and forgive much. Jesus told us that in fact: "Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little" (Lk. 7:47). If someone has a hard time forgiving others, it is because they have not been truly repentant enough themselves and therefore do not know the mercy of God like they should. This was in fact the case with the Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke in my last cited scripture. The last indicator of who people love the most, that I will mention here [though there are more]; is what people do with their money. Jesus gave us a very concise statement on this matter, that is really inescapable: "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Mat. 6:19-21). Seeing that the scripture tells us plainly that "the love of money is the root of all evil," it should come as no surprise that what someone does with their money tells the story of their heart, even as Jesus said (I Tim. 6:10). The word 'treasure' in the passage from Matthew 6 comes from the Greek word 'Thesauros,' and it is defined as, "the place in which good and precious things are collected and laid up." So Jesus was just saying what I've already said, which is our hearts are revealed by what we do with our money, in terms of priority. We all do a lot of things with our money, as it is necessary for living in the world; but as it is with every other indicator listed in this article, it is all about our priorities. For instance, we certainly love others beside Jesus. We naturally spend much time apart from personal time with Jesus.

All of us try to please others beside Jesus. We have our minds on other things and people than Jesus, and we talk about other things other than Jesus. All of that is natural, but again it is about how we are inclined to prioritize things, that really matters. In my long experience in Christ, I believe the greatest sign that I have consistently seen that tells where someone's heart is about the money issue; is how they feel about tithes and offerings. I've heard so many arguments about how tithes and offerings are not for the new testament, and I'm fully aware that there is not overwhelming scriptural evidence that it is. But my stance on the matter is quite precise, and very, very hard to refute. God ordained a system by which the old covenant ministry was to be supported, and that covenant was founded on the blood of bulls and goats, which blood never truly took away the sins of those who were under that covenant (Heb. 9:13; Heb. 10:4). Neither did that covenant impart divine, eternal life to those who partook of it (Gal. 3:21). The reason that there was a system of worldly support ordained for that covenant was because it was men who conducted the ministry of that covenant, and taught it to the people. Men need worldly things to be able to live in the world. It's that simple. The apostle Paul told us about this very thing regarding the old covenant: "Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar?" (I Cor. 9:13) Now remember that it was a system of tithes and offerings that were rendered to the priests and the Levites. The reason that the apostle made the previous cited statement about how the old covenant ministers were ordained to live by that system, was for the purpose of making the following statement immediately afterward: "Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel" (I Cor. 9:14).

So what does that tell you? It tells me that the covenant that we are in was founded not on the blood of bulls and goats, but rather on the precious blood of the Son of God who fulfilled every sacrifice under the old covenant. It also tells me that this covenant really does take away the sins of those who believe on Christ, and that divine, eternal life IS imparted to those who join covenant with him (Heb. 9:14; II Tim. 1:10). What it also tells me is that anyone with an honest heart and a halfway sound mind would have to agree that if the old covenant was worthy of a system of worldly support for those who ministered it, then surely this covenant is more worthy of the same. I'm just not sure how anyone can honestly argue against that. The new testament writings are replete with instructions to support the ministry financially, which is to say support the ministers of the Gospel financially (Lk. 10:7; I Cor. 9:7-14; Gal. 6:6; Philip. 4:17; I Tim. 5:17,18; Heb. 7:8). Tithes and offerings were not stated so definitively because they simply did not need to be stated definitively, which is to say everyone understood these things already. To believe that God just left it to the good-will of the saints to 'give' whenever or however they feel, is to believe that God esteems this covenant less worthy of being ministered than he did the old covenant, which is ridiculous. In my long experience I have observed that those with the most honest hearts and fruitful lives, are always joyfully willing to pay their tithes and offerings. But in any event I believe that we have enough things listed here that can give us a good indication of whether we are loving God wholly, or whether we are not. If we are not, the good news is we have opportunity to get the wrinkles ironed out, so that we can be found as the scripture says; "not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that [we] should be holy and without blemish" (Eph. 5:27). Amen.