Is your love for Stuff or for Jesus?

Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here.” Exodus 33:15 It is possible to experience success and yet be void of God's presence. If success is what is important to you, you may be tempted to choose accomplishments over your relationship with God. God offered to send an angel with the Israelites as they entered the Promised Land to ensure their success in every venture. No army could withstand them. No city wall could stop them. The wealth of the land lay before them. Everything they had ever dreamed of appeared to be theirs for the taking. The only thing missing would be the presence of God. God said they were an obstinate people, and He would not go with them when their hearts were far from Him. The Israelites’ experience reveals that victory and great accomplishments are not necessarily a sign of God's presence. Do not assume that your good health, your profitable business, or the growth of your ministry is due to the presence of God. It may be that you have inadvertently chosen success over your walk with the Lord. Moses wisely concluded that success, no matter how great, is not a substitute for fellowship with God. Moses knew how quickly worldly achievements could disappear. His security came from his relationship with God. Success in the world's eyes is not a sign of God's blessing. It may, in fact, indicate that you have chosen a substitute for intimate fellowship with God. Would you be satisfied to have success, power, and wealth, but not a relationship with God? Do you value God's presence in your life more than the greatest achievements you could experience in the world?  - Blackaby Experiencing God Day by Day 

Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves 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 boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:15-17 

So what are you directing your love towards?  The stuff of this world? Your job? Your possessions? Go deeper. Your family? Your money? Dare we go there...your rights?

If indeed we are to take up OUR cross daily and follow Christ, what does that mean?

Truth be told, everything in this world and all it has to offer is a stumbling block to growing in Christ. If anything, or anyone, is between you and Jesus then it's a stumbling block.  

Where your treasure is found there is your heart.  

Think about what motivates you. What drives you to get up in the morning. What makes you do what you do and love what you love. 

Is Jesus on your mind at all during your day?  Have you put people before God? Is your rights coming before your obedience to God's Word?

Where is your love directed? 

Believer's are taking nothing but our experiences of life with us to Heaven. Only our thoughts and intentions.  Nothing physical at all. The treasury of Heaven is people brought to Jesus. 

So are you consumed with the problems and stresses of this world?  Are you more worked up over what rights you have or don't have? Are you more concerned about anything than your walk with God?

Where is your love directed?

Is your walk before men fraught with moments where you have given Jesus a black eye?  Listen well my dear reader, if you are in Christ, you represent Him.  Where you go, what you say, who you associate with should speak of that relationship.  If you claim to be a Christian yet tear into others with foul language, you are disgracing your own Savior. 

Do you at all focus on the things of God? 

Is your rights worth more to you than the need of those around you to be saved?

Is your need for an expensive anything worth more than the tithing you didn't give to God? 

Is your anything robbing God of the love you are claiming you have for Him?

Have you put family on a pedestal? 

These questions are as much pointed at me as they are to you my friend.  

Paul said he learned what contentment was. He knew all extremes of being without and having plenty.  He knew all about storing up treasures in Heaven. 

We are a society these days of honesty having too much.  Too much time, energy and effort is put into idolatry. From possessions to people.  Nobody is getting it that THAT is exactly what Satan wants. To train people to learn to put the glory of God onto a man or a thing.  To prepare this world for the man who will represent him as the new world Leader.  He won't ask for the admiration or devotion of his fellow man, he will demand it and most of this world will give it willingly. 

To borrow an extremely popular movie phrase.  You must unlearn what you have learned. 

You stress yourself out because of what your eyes see and what you do or do not have.  You allow the worries of this life to choke out the Word of God in your life. 

What did Jesus chastise a Church for in Revelation?  For forgetting their first love. Which is Jesus. 

Look at your life. If anyone is truthfully looking at their lives, look at what's really bothering you. You don't invite Christ into your life, your heart, then tell Him to sit in a chair in the corner while you parade your wants and desires for this life in front of Him, all the while ignoring what He is telling you about them. 

Return to your first love, which is Christ Jesus.