¹⁵ Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. ¹⁶ For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.

Who Do You Love?

When I was a teenager, there was a girl who attended the same youth group as I did. While the rest of us struggled along in our spiritual journey, this girl seemed to always be sold out for God. She would weep as she confessed that she missed prayer one day in the past week. The rest of us would shake our heads and silently wonder what she would think if she knew how we had failed God that past week.

I remember the first time someone mentioned her name to me and then said, “She’s so heavenly minded, she’s no earthly good.” I thought it was an amazing description of someone who was so focused on their faith that they couldn’t relate to anyone around them. In fact, I began to use the phrase to describe anyone who seemed to talk a super-spiritual talk.

It was only a few years ago when I realized that I was using the description as a way of excusing my own lack of commitment to God.

Allow me to explain. I don’t think it’s healthy if you’re brought to tears because you missed having a prayer time one day in the past seven. If that’s were you are in your relationship with God, I think you might be experiencing pseudo-spirituality. To me, it sounds very religious to condemn yourself for missing prayer time. But, I’m not sure it’s where God wants you to be. I also think that people can loose touch with the people around them when they put their energy in trying to “please God” with their devotion. Again, this takes you down a path of religious behaviour, not spirituality.

Having said that, I don’t think it is ever possible to be too heavenly minded. In fact, I believe that the more heavenly minded you are, the more earthly good you can be. Why? Because God’s heart is for the people of this world. For God so loved the world. That means, the more you love God and focus on eternity, the more you’ll commit to loving people and serving them as God has called you to do.

Does that make sense? The most effective way to connect to the world around you is to first love God with everything you are. If you love the world, you forget about God. But if you love God first, your heart will break with compassion for the world.

My prayer: Lord, help me to love you with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength. Why? So that I might love my neighbour the way you created me to love them – as myself. I give my life to you and I focus on becoming as heavenly minded as I can so that I might reach the people around me without falling in love with the attitudes and priorities of the world. Amen.

Until tomorrow.