Loving the Things of the World

When asked which of the commandments is the most important Jesus responded basically that we should love God with ALL of our heart, soul and mind.  (Mat 22:37-38). If in some dark alley a gun was pointed at you and you were told to give up ALL your money, you would understand with no problem at all that ALL means every bit of cash and probably your credit cards as well.  When God tells us to love Him with ALL our heart we understand we our to feel good about Him on Sundays and 2 or 3 other times during the week when we think about Him.  If you know a fisherman or a car mechanic you know that they will talk about fishing or fixing cars for hours on end with no problem at all.  You try to have a conversation with most Christians about the Bible and it is typical for them to very much prefer other topics.  For all of the time i have spent sitting in "fellowship" and eating with Christians, i have pretty much no peer example of how to have a casual group conversation about the Bible.  Casual conversation where people talk about a particular topic from the Bible with Bible in hand and different people suggesting different verses and viewpoints is something we very, VERY, rarely do. 

When God asks us to love Him with ALL of our heart we seem to think that those things that truly have our affection, like spectator sports or big houses or fishing or whatever we choose do with our discretionary time, we seem to think that those things are subcategories of loving God.  Is that a reasonable hypotheses?   "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."  I think that when John wrote this there were actually things that we are not supposed to love.  I would say that one way to decide if our affections are things that God does not want us to love is to ask ourselves if they are getting in the way of doing what God HAS told us to love. 

For example our eternal salvation is implicated in Jesus' story about the sheep and the goats.
     "For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave 
     Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you 
     clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me."
He was talking here about loving people.  Therefore loving people in this way is a subcategory of loving God.  If you or I spend more time with things like spectator sports than we do with type of loving God, then we are clearly loving the things of the world more than we do God.  Jesus clearly tied this to eternal salvation!!!  This is really important!!!

Christianity in many ways teaches us it is not "just alright" to love the things of the world, but actually teaches that God wants us to love some of them.  But this train of thought can take us to many topics.

Here is the bottom line for now.   We need to take a serious look at where our heart is.  We don't decide this by what makes us feel warm and fuzzy, but rather what do we think about, talk about, and spend time and money on.  Are those things truly subcategories of loving God?  If not, it is very possibly idolatry.  It probably fits fine with Christianity, but it does not fit with following Jesus.