Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world.  If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him.  For everything that belongs to the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s lifestyle-is not from the Father, but is from the world.  And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does God’s will remains forever.  1 John 2:15  HCSB

When we are experiencing problems in our lives, we put our focus on the problem.  Yesterday evening a dear friend had surgery.  This surgery wasn’t scheduled.  He had simply gone in with stomach pains.  I am sure he was expecting that he may get some meds and be sent home.  He and his wife were surprised to learn that major surgery would be needed right away.  Having the opportunity to sit in the surgery waiting room with his family for several hours, I observed a number of families there awaiting the surgery of a loved one.  Most had that same look of concern.  And the one thing that everyone had in common was the fact that we had dropped our usual routines to be there and await the outcome of a loved one who was undergoing a surgery.  In that moment, everything else could be put on hold.  In the grand scheme of things the trivial things did not matter.  The only thing that mattered to everyone in that room was a good outcome for their loved one.

When we face extreme circumstances such as our own personal illness or the illness of a loved one, the little things in life do not matter.  But when things are going well in our lives, sometimes we become hyper focused on those little things.  If we are not careful those little things can consume us and we can be deceived into thinking they are big things.  It’s very important to understand the difference.

Think about a bubble.  You know the kind of bubbles that come in a bottle with a little wand and you can blow them or wave the wand in the air and it produces these little bubbles. The bubbles are pretty but they are delicate. We know that anything that touches them will likely destroy them.  We know that they will only last for a matter of seconds.  When you compare the average life span to eternity, we are like those bubbles.  James 4:14 says, Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.  What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

So, if we live our lives focused on God, we find that a lot of things of this world are not so important after all.  Our scripture passage for today tells us that the love of the world consists of lust of the flesh.  Lust is something that can get us into trouble, it is something that leads to adultery.  Adultery is defined in the bible as sexual relations between a man and a woman that are not married to each other.  As you may recall, it is a direct violation of one of the ten commandments.  Just yesterday we talked about how God honors obedience and if we love Him then we follow His commands.  The lust of the eyes is greed.  It is wanting what others have.  We are also told in the ten commandments not to covet or desire what others have.  Pride in our lifestyle is another thing we are cautioned against.  Do you spend a lot of time worrying about what brand of clothes you wear or what type of car you drive?  Matthew 6:25 tells us not to worry about what we will eat or what we will drink or what we will wear.

Jobs are important but they should not consume all of our time, we should live a balanced lifestyle.  So many jobs today are stressful and so demanding that people have physical illnesses from job stress.

So what is in your grand scheme of things?  What are the things in life that are most important to you? In my teen years, it was all about what I wore and what I drove.  I’ll admit that.  But once I surrendered to Christ those things no longer mattered to me.  The things of this world are all going to pass away.  The cars, the clothes and even the money will pass away.  So why should we put such focus on things that are temporary and fleeting?  Why not focus on God?  We are cautioned against immersing ourselves into the things of this world.  Just last week in Sunday school we studied the parable of the rich young ruler.  Jesus told him that he must sell all he owned in order to enter into heaven.  This rich young ruler went away sad because he could not part with his possessions.  I had never realized until studying this lesson that this was the only time that Jesus ever instructed anyone to sell all that they had and not just a portion.  The reason for this is that Jesus knew that this young man valued his possessions more than he valued God and his eternal life.

I ask you today if you were sick and dying would the things that you are focused on today matter to you?  In the grand scheme of things what really matters is our eternal life.  Do a little self assessment.  Be sure that you are focused on what really matters.

Have a great day!