Bible Reading: 1 John 2:14-21 KJV
- 1 John 2:15 KJV
How do you spend your money, time and energy? Where is your heart? The Bible says, "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." (Mark 12:30) What you love most is the God of your life. The Bible also says, "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other." (Matthew 6:24)
Today's Christians do not struggle so much with worldly sins such as extramarital affairs, homosexuality, drug use, gambling, drinking. etc., instead for most Christians love of family is at the core of their love of the world. They will put family before God by skipping the house of God for a grandchild's piano recital, compromise their standards to attend a family reunion in an unchristian place, or take a family vacation in an unchristian environment.
Jesus encountered similar situations with his family. In Matthew 13 Jesus went into his own country, and his own people were offended by Him. Matthew 13:57 states, "And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house."
Jesus' brothers did not believe he was God (James was not converted until after the resurrection). John 7:2-4 describes a situation in which his brothers are trying to persuade Jesus to go to Judea, where the Jews were seeking to kill him. Jesus chose the will of the father over his family, this caused contention with his family.
In Mark 3 Jesus' mother and brothers were calling for him, and when told of it, Jesus replied in Mark 3:33b-35, "...Who is my mother, or my brethren? [34] And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! [35] For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother."
There is a specific order of love and submission that God expects from us, and it is succinctly summed up in Matthew 10:37, "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." That is not to say we should not love our family, but they must come after Jesus, whom we must love more, else we are loving the world more than God.
1 John 2:15 makes it clear that we are to "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". Which do you love most? The things of the world, including family, or the things of God? If you love the world, then there was no salvation - you are not part of the saved few.
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