Read: Mark
12:28-34
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
When my
delight and desire for the Lord is not as great as my desire for someone or
something else, I need revival.
Have you ever been to a basketball game
that came down to the final few seconds? There is a tremendous energy in the
gym, and people are yelling at the top of their lungs for their team. I’ve been
to games where I lost my voice from cheering so loudly, and perhaps you have,
too. It is easy to get excited about sports because it is something we are
interested in; it is something that moves us to action. The sad thing is that
many Christians get more excited about sports than they do about the things of
God. They come into church on Sunday half awake and very unenthused about being
dragged there. When you can get louder and more energized at a sporting event
than you can when singing the hymns about Jesus Christ, then something is out
of line. That basketball game did not die to save your soul. That basketball
game does not give you breath. That basketball game has nothing to do with the
good life that you live. Jesus Christ has everything to do with those things,
and He deserves our praise and excitement.
Nothing – not sports, not sleep, not a
girlfriend, not even food – is so important that it should cut into our
devotional time with our Lord. Often we get so busy trying to please those
around us that we neglect to please God in the process. He gets ignored because
our delight for Him and our desire for a relationship with Him is not as strong
as it ought to be. Ask yourself the questions, “Do I love God more than I did
yesterday, and is my relationship with Him better than it ever has been?” If
you cannot answer “yes” to those questions then you are backslidden and you
need revival. You see, your life cannot just rest in a neutral zone. You are
either moving forward for God, or you are moving backward.
As a young man, perhaps you don’t know
exactly what God’s will is for your life. Do you desire to be called into the
ministry? God certainly does not call everyone into the ministry, and there is
absolutely nothing wrong with being a doctor, lawyer, plumber, electrician, or
anything else if that is what God calls you to be. But, though a heart that is
warm toward the things of God may not be called into the ministry, it wants to
be. We must realize that in the end, God could take away all the things that
excite us more than His things because He gave them to us in the first place.
Make sure your desire is toward the things of God.
Quote of
the day: “If you want to have a heart for God, you must let God have your
heart.”
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