Who Or What Do You Love More?

Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalm 37:4  

That verse can be taken two ways.  First, if you pursue God then He will give you anything your little heart desires. Second, if you pursue God, He will make His passion, your passion.  He will change your “wants” to those things that reflect His will and purposes.  The second is what Jesus was telling Peter in John 21.  Paraphrased .... Jesus was saying

“If you love Me, then pursue those things that I pursue.  Do what I say to do, even if it makes no earthly sense.” 

What makes missionaries distinctive is that they place less value on earthly comforts and relationships than they do on the call of Jesus on their lives to pick up their cross, abandon the things of this world, and follow Him.  To feed His sheep if you will.  The thing about a shepherd, when everyone else is at home sleeping, he is standing guard over the flock. When the Lord brought us to Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey for two years we lived in a travel trailer, parked next to a church, listening to the cars zoom up and down the highway and departing jets flying a few hundred feet over the trailer.  My point?  God has called us to a place that we would not have chosen nor even imagined. When He calls, you must be willing to lay what is comfortable and familiar, down - your nets if you will, and follow Jesus.

From time to time when I tell my wife that I love her, she will say “I love you more.” Then I say “No, I love you more.” And we go back and forth several times with that.  But where is the proof of that love? The proof of love is not words, as affirming as they might be. 

Ephesians 5:25 says this, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her.” 

Do you love God enough to give yourself up for Him?  – your hopes, your dreams, your comfort, your secure retirement, your family holidays, the list goes on ….. The theme of the Bible is that God is supreme and deserves our total devotion … like David, we must love God with our whole heart. (1 Kings 14:8).  Listen, men, you won’t love your wife that way (Ephesians 5:25) if you first don’t love God that way first. (Matthew 22:37-39). And you won’t love God that way if you are unwilling to lay your life down.

Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. - Matthew 16:24

So - who or what do you love more?

Paul laid it out for us in Romans

I [beg] you therefore, brothers [and sisters], by the mercies of God, that you present [or offer] your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. [In light of the sacrifice that Jesus made for you] And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. - Romans 12:1-2

Think about it – Pray about it – Believe it – Walk in it. Let your light shine and give God the glory.

By Faith Alone By His Grace Alone And For His Glory Alone