Thought for November 6, 2023

  •  1789: Father John Carroll named frist Catholic Bishop in the U.S.
  • 1860: Abraham Lincoln elected President
  • 1888: Benjamin Harrison elected President even though Grover Cleveland won the popular vote
  • 1913: Gandhi arrested for leading miners' march in South Africa
  • 1917: Bolshevik Revolution begins in Russia
  • 1928: Colonel Jacob Schick patents the first electric razor
  • 1947: "Meet the Press" debuts
  • 2001: "24" premiers
  • Born: Suleiman the Magnificent, Adolphe Sax, John Philip Sousa, James Naismith, Ray Conniff, Mike Nichols, Pat Dye, Maria Shriver, Ethan Hawke, Pat Tillman, Emma Stone
  • Died: Catherine the Great, Tchaikovsky, George Williams [founded YMCA], Billy Sunday, Gene Tierney
Thought:
Looking at 1 John 2:15-17 today. John is going to talk about love in chapter 3, but he starts with telling us what not to love. That makes me ask, "today, what are the things I should not love?' Jesus said love God and love your neighbor as yourself, so I know what I am supposed to love. Here John wants me to recall what I am not supposed to love. The first thing that comes to my mind is how many times today I'll say, "I love that." I love that team, I love that shirt, I love that idea, I love that food. Really? Back in the early 1960's, C.S. Lewis warned us that a plan of Satan was to change the meaning of words so that we would be deceived and misled. Or as I have heard recently, he wants us to use God's vocabulary, but not God's dictionary. Look at what John tells us:
  • Don't love the world or the things of the world. For Larry this reminds me not to love stuff. Love God and love people, not stuff. Loving stuff creates jealousy, envy, comparison, discontent. Those lead to greed, compromise, and other sins. Then John tells us why we are not to love the world or stuff-it is passing away; it won't last; it will be destroyed. Jesus told the folks on the hillside not to treasure things that rust, that get eaten by moths, that go out of fashion, that don't fit anymore, that become obsolete. Treasure things that endure eternally. Paul reminds us in 1st Corinthians 13--love endures forever. 
  • John reminds us about the world and its stuff
    • Lust of the eyes--I see it and I want it. Satan told Eve to look at the apple--it was good to look at. It appealed to the senses. The lust of the eyes leads us to adultery, fornication, greed, buying things we do not need, chasing things that we should not have. 
    • Lust of the flesh--seeing it creates lust in my flesh. And the advertisers know this well--Get a pretty girl or handsome guy to push your product. Or a famous star or athlete--the lust is that I think choosing that product will make me like Tom Brady or Taylor Swift--it will not. 
    • Pride of life--so the ads tell us, "you deserve it," "you earned it," "you need it," "it will make you feel good, look good, and people will like you." 
  • Lust and pride are not from the Father and chasing thm is not His will. I recall sitting across the lunch table from a young lady I taught in Sunday School as a senior high student and then a college student. Wonderful young woman and a believer. She wanted to have lunch to tell me about the man of her dreams that she had met. He was so loving and attentive, so kind and good. Then she said, "he's a lawyer." Really? Who is he? Turns out he was an associate in the firm where I worked--a married associate. Yes, she knew he was married, but he was unhappy and she was certain the Lord had placed him in her life. Well, we turned to 1 John--this is not from the Father. She stopped the relationship, later got married and has had a wonderful life. 
Today, I am asking myself, what/who do I love? We are told to love our wives as Christ loved the church--am I doing that. We are to told to love others as I love myself--am I doing that? I am commanded to love God with all my heart, mind, soul and strength--am I doing that? What if Adam and Eve had done that? The apple was pleasing to the eyes, looked like it would taste delicious, and would make them like God--lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride of life. Today won't be any different for me than the Garden was for them--who/what will I love today?
Blessings
Larry

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