-->In 1 John 2:15-17, we are told, "Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father. Everything that belongs to the world -what the sinful self desires, what people see and want, and everything in this world that people are so proud of -none of this comes from the Father; it all comes from the world. The world and everything in it that people desire is passing away; but he who does the will of God lives forever."
Imagine that we are making two columns and at the top of the first column we write Stuff That Lasts Forever, and at the top of the other column we write Stuff That Doesn't Last. Under the first column, the one titled Stuff that Lasts Forever, let's make a list. It's a very short list because, frankly, there's not a whole lot of stuff that lasts forever. In fact, there's only one item in this list: God's Kingdom. Under the other column, the Stuff That Doesn't Last, let's also make a list. Now this list would end up being extremely long because there's a lot of stuff that doesn't last forever. So, to simplify things we are going to shorten the list by simply writing Everything Else. And I think that about covers it. Kingdom stuff lasts forever, earth stuff doesn't.
That's why we are told, "Do not love the world or anything in the world." It's all earth stuff and its passing away. Jesus said, "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness." You see, that's eternal stuff; stuff that won't pass away. Even though we are surrounded by people who are entirely consumed with earth stuff -with getting promotions and accumulating possessions, and achieving prosperity, and grasping prestige and power, that's all earth stuff and we, as Christians, need to hold these kinds of things very lightly.
There are two basic problems with taking earth stuff too seriously. First, if we care too much about earth stuff, we forget our true priorities. The other problem we have if we take our earth stuff too seriously is that the things we think we own end up owning us.
If we treasure our possession's or our careers, or our prestige or any of that other earth stuff, we not only must put a whole lot of time into accumulating and achieving that stuff to start with, but then we must put a lot of time and money and energy into keeping it once we have it. It's hard to keep that stuff, because by nature, you see, it is fleeting, it is passing away, it's stuff that doesn't last. As we become preoccupied with getting and keeping this temporary stuff, it gradually becomes our whole existence. All of our resources are spent on our temporary stuff. By temporary stuff, again I mean everything that's not Kingdom stuff. If we exist for temporary stuff, in effect, our stuff owns us.
Clearly, this demonstrates a problem with our priorities. The reason our priorities should be focused on the Kingdom of God instead of this world is that 1.) Kingdom stuff lasts forever, and earth stuff doesn't. And 2.) when we put our trust in Jesus for salvation -when through faith we accepted the death of Jesus as the source of forgiveness for the sins we had committed, the Bible tells us that we became not just believers in God, but children of God. We were adopted as God's literal children. That means this world is no longer our home, it is in reality a very short stop over. As Children of God, the Kingdom of God is now our home. We no longer belong to the temporary, now we belong to the eternal. The temporary is no longer our inheritance.
You've all heard the expression, "It's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." That is what our attitude toward earth stuff should be. While we live here, there is nothing wrong with owning some earth stuff -in fact, it can't be avoided. For now, this is where we live. But understand that this is a temporary arrangement. This world and everything in it is passing away. There is nothing wrong with temporarily owning temporary stuff. In the mean time, do whatever it takes to ensure that the temporary stuff you temporarily own doesn't own you.
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