Yard Sale

09.08.12

1 John 2.14b-15 14 b …I have written to you who are young in the faith because you are strong. God’s word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one.

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. NLT

Of course when it was written 1 John 2 wasn’t 1 John 2 – it was just a passage in a letter written to some believers in Asia Minor so that they would be encouraged and helped to withstand the arrogance and ridicule leveled against them, and the clever lies concocted to argue against the simplicity of their faith in Christ and the deity of Jesus Christ. It’s been going on for centuries.

What partly caught my attention this morning was the part of the passage that says: God’s word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one. The battle was belief – they won because they believed. Belief is what separates liars and truth-ers. And to live “in the truth” one has to have God’s word living in them. That means knowing God’s word and living by it. Reading the Bible is one thing – living it is another thing altogether.

But in order to have God’s word living in us, we need to have room in our hearts for His word and an accompanying faith that it is vital for His word to live there in the first place. So in order to have God’s word living in our hearts, we need to shed our love of this world and the things offered to us by the world which compete for room in our hearts. Remember, the world first offers arrogance, ridicule and clever lies leveled against our faith in Christ – you don’t need it – and the deity of Christ – it ain’t true.

I think it remarkable but only fitting that 1 John 2.14b precedes 1 John 2.15. We cannot have God’s word living in us – actively making its difference in us – if there is crowded competition for the things the world offers in place of the presence of His word. The initial battle with the evil one is won by belief. The subsequent daily battles are won by living according to the Word that lives in us. Those battles are the ones that determine where our love lies: in truth, or in the world.

Across the street today is a yard sale going on. Two folks have entered into (what I believe is) their second marriages. And now they’re shedding what stuff they don’t have room for since they’ve combined their households. (Ain’t it amazing the crap we collect over the years…?) The tangible truth for me today is I’ve accumulated so much crap from the world that I need to get rid of it to make room for the truth in my heart. (Trust me – or examine my life) I’ve off-loaded a bunch over the years; and I’ve come to realize how much I need God’s word living in my heart so that I can continue to win the battles over the place of my love. The world is damned creative at coming up with more and more clever ways to steal my devotion from the simplicity of my faith and the deity of Christ. (His deity is a settle fact with me, but the lure of the world is constant in its offer of what it thinks I need for true happiness.)

The love of the world crowds out the Word of God and nullifies the love of God. Where is my True Love? Where does it reside – on the pages of Holy writ or written upon a holy heart?