intimacy with god
Is Jesus Your First Love,Treasure, Passion?
Is Jesus Your First Love, Treasure, and Passion ?
Is Jesus your first love? Is Jesus’ love the foundation of my life ? Surpassing all else in its depth and significance. Is Jesus a constant, unwavering presence that shapes your thoughts, actions, and heart? Is His love, grace, and teachings drawing you closer to Him every day ?
Do you realize that no earthly love compares to His? Do you find your true purpose and identity in Jesus ?
Is Jesus your First Love ? Do you love Jesus more than anyone else and anything else ? More than yourself ? You are God’s first love. God loves you more than anything else that He created. Now He wants you to love Him that way. God wants to be your First Love. That is what having a personal relationship and close fellowship with God is all about.
Is Jesus your Treasure ? Do you treasure and value Jesus more than anything or anyone else ? You are God’s treasure. He treasures and values you more than anything else that He created. And now God wants you to treasure and value Him more than anything or anyone else. He wants to be your Treasure.
Is Jesus your Passion ? Are you more passionate about Jesus and your relationship with Him than anything else ? God is passionate about you. And about having close fellowship with you. Now He wants you to be more passionate about Him than anything or anyone else.
Is Jesus Your First Love, Treasure, and Passion ?
Idols In Today’s World
Most people that are Christians today would say that without a doubt they do not have any idols in their life. After all, an idol is something like a religious item or a statue. Like the golden calf that the Israelites made while Moses was on Mount Sinai getting the 10 commandments from God. Or like a statue of Buddha.
We need God to examine our hearts before we quickly state that we have no idols in our life and that Jesus is absolutely our first love. Perhaps idols in today’s modern world are something altogether different than we think.
Before we see what idols actually are in today’s world. let’s take a look at how God views idols.
God’s View Of Idols
Deuteronomy 5:7-10 – “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me. But showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
The word “jealous” in verse 9 is not the same as petty human jealousy. It refers to God’s zealous love for His people. God zealously loves us with all His heart, and He wants us to love Him this same way. And to be zealous and passionate for God.
Is Jesus Your First Love, Treasure, & Passion ?
God views our idols as acts of adultery in our relationship with Him
Excerpts from Jeremiah 1:16 to 3:20 give us a clearer picture of God’s view of idols.
“I will pronounce my judgements on my people because of their wickedness in forsaking me, in burning incense to other gods and in worshipping what their hands have made. … I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me and followed me through the desert… Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged my Glory for worthless idols. … My people have committed two sins: they have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. … Have you not brought this on yourselves by forsaking the Lord your God when he led you in the way ? …
Your wickedness will punish you; your backsliding will rebuke you. Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me. … They have turned their backs to me and not their faces; yet when they are in trouble they say, ‘Come and save us !’ Where then are the gods you made for yourselves ? Let them come if they can save you when you are in trouble ! … But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers – would you now return to me ? … their immorality mattered so little to them, they defiled the land and committed adultery with stone and wood (idols). …
Only acknowledge your guilt- you have rebelled against the Lord your God, you have scattered your favors to foreign gods under every spreading tree and have not obeyed me; Return, faithless people, declares the Lord, for I am your husband. … How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation. I thought you would call me Father, and not turn away from following me. But like a woman unfaithful to her husband, so you have been unfaithful to me.”
We are God’s first love; He want to be our First Love
1 John 2:15-16 tells us: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Is Jesus Your First Love, Treasure, & Passion ?
What Is An Idol ?
An idol is anything that takes the place of Jesus as the first love, and treasure, and passion of our life. It is natural for human beings to have idols, which can be almost anything tangible in our lives. It is easier to pursue and put something in 1st place in our lives if it is a visible and tangible thing or goal, dream, or desire.
Examples Of Idols in Today’s Modern World
Here are some examples of modern day idols.
- Money
- Religion
- Tradition
- Pleasure
- Career
- Ministry
- Success
- Accomplishment
- Material Things
- Status
- Power
- Influence
- Position
- Our own goals (in place of God’s goals)
- Our own purposes (in place of God’s purposes)
- Control
- Our own ideas
- Our own opinions
- Self – living to please self instead of pleasing God – 2 Corinthians 5:9,14
Is Jesus Your First Love, Treasure, & Passion ?
It is Not Sin or Wrong to Have These Things
It is not wrong to have these things. What makes it sin and wrong is when we begin to love these things more than Jesus. Or when we turn to these things to satisfy and fulfill ourselves before we turn to God. Or when we are more passionate about these things than we are about Jesus.
Before you decide that you do not have any idols in your life please read the next post next week. Anything that is taking Jesus’ place as your first love and your treasure and your passion is an idol.
Pursuing Intimacy With God
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Prayer Is Passion For Seeking God
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Spiritual Gifts: All Christians Have Gifts
Jesus Wants To Heal You & Set You Free
The Kind of Christian & Church God Wants
The Lord’s Prayer – Prayer In The Bible
Jesus’ Teaching On Prayer In Luke 11
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