WHEN MATERIALISM CONSUMES

Possessions never satisfy nor last, but the love of God does.

1 John 2:12-17; 3:16-18

The things we consume appear to be consuming us!  God wants us to enjoy life, but he has a far better and more satisfying way.  

God's approach has everything to do with our love for him.  Do not love the world or the things in the world, John tells us.  John was concerned about how the devil would use the world to draw believers away from God. Where one's passion love is, is where one tends to dwell.  Dwelling upon the loves of the world tends to cause one to dwell in the world.  Dwelling upon God tends to lead one to dwell upon heaven.

True love is not merely a romantic infatuation or lustful longing.  Truly, love is the Greek word agape–Unlike our English word love, agape is not used in the New Testament to refer to romantic or sexual love. Nor does it refer to close friendship or brotherly love, for which the Greek word philia is used. Agape love involves faithfulness, commitment, and an act of the will.  

Agape is used to describe the love that is of and from God, whose very nature is love itself: “God is love”. God does not merely love; He is love itself. The type of love that characterizes God is not a sappy, sentimental feeling such as we often hear portrayed. God loves because that is His nature and the expression of His being. He loves the unlovable and the unlovely, not because we deserve to be loved or because of any excellence we possess, but because it is His nature.  We are to love others with agape love, whether they are fellow believers or bitter enemies.   Agape love does not come naturally to us. Because of our fallen nature, we are incapable of producing such a love. If we are to love as God loves, that love—that agape—can only come from its Source.  Because of God’s love toward us, we are able to love one another.

When things of this world hold us back from sharing agape with other creations of this world, much less with God, then we are missing the mark of what God had planned for us.  The things that come into our possession during our time on this world do not long satisfy us, nor do they last.  The love of God – his for us and ours for him – is an eternal love and one that materialism can not overwhelm.