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1 John 2:15-17

"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. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

The best way to determine what makes someone will do in any given situation is to determine where his heart lies. That is why there is so much in the Word of God about where our love and affection is to be focused. When He was asked what the most important of all the commandments was, Jesus replied, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment” (Mark 12:30).

The devil knows the importance of us loving God, so he is constantly offering us alternatives to draw our affections away from the Lord. He really doesn't care what it is that we love as long as it is not God. Anything else will serve his evil purpose. But the reality behind every one of the lures Satan sets before us is that it is only fleeting at best. That truth is why Moses rejected “the pleasures of sin”—because they were only for a short season.

The believer who loves God will never experience the loss of the object of his affection. The believer who falls in love with the things of the world will never experience the fulfillment of the desires he places in them because they are already falling apart even as they enter his grasp. God calls us to rise above the world to love Him.

Growth Principle: 

Nothing that the world offers to us is worthy of the love that belongs to God.

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