All I need

1 John 2:15-17     Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world. 17 And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

I wish I could insert the entire commentary from Matthew Henry here of 1 John 2:12-17. He so elegantly explains of how at all levels of our Christian lives we are to focus on God alone. Of how we are to abide in God’s Word, so deeply planted in our hearts, that we move to a life focused only on God and the things of God. Of how we as Christians should be so bent in that pursuit, of Him that to the sinful desires and pursuits of this world, that we are “crucified to the world, (to) be mortified to the things, to the affairs, and enticements of it.” Philippians 3:8a Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. Satan and his enticements of the worldly pleasures of sin are a battle that is fought all our lives, and only won through the strength found in abiding in God’s Word.

I fell, no I jumped, into the pursuits of these sins of this world for much of my life. Those pursuits and confessions of those sins could fill a book. I lived for the moment, and the moment was about me and what I could obtain. Pride is at the root of my testimony, and God has been hammering away at that foundation of sin upon which my life sat. He has revealed it, and continues to do so almost daily. There is a part of me in this Sanctification process that has become “mortified” to the extent of materialism that surrounds me daily. The evidences of it, and the pursuit of it,  are everywhere I find myself daily. All these point to how far the world is from God now. 16 For all that is in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world.

You must ask yourself the question of verse 15; do you love the stuff in this world more than the Creator of this world? Do you spend your life in the pursuits of all that you can obtain in any and all areas? Are you so focused on your next conquest that you don’t have time for God? There is nothing you will ever obtain, never able to “name and claim”, that will make a cent of difference in eternity. That cent of difference can make the difference where you spend eternity. 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. The scriptures of verse 16 outline the three topical sinful pleasures that can take our eyes and hearts off God: Sinful sexual desires, covetousness or materialism, and pride. 16 For all that is in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world . Where is your struggle? I have all three……..