Good morning and welcome in everybody. Today, we are going to take a look at a passage of scripture from The Book of Mark.
Mark 12:29-30 (KJB) And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
An obsession is defined in many different places as a persistent preoccupation with something that has strong control over your thoughts. It is a recurrent belief or an urge that persistently comes into one’s mind, or an all-consuming focus on something. Although people can obsess on all kinds of different things, this is exactly the way that we need to feel towards our precious Lord Jesus. In order to love Him perfectly, He must become the object of our worship, and our Everlasting obsession.
There is a huge difference between the way that we are to love others in this world in comparison to the way that we are to love God. Men are supposed to love their wives, but certainly not to worship and adore them. Men are to love their families but not to place them on a pedestal. Doting on others is to show them excessive love and attention which causes them to become spoiled or overindulgent. To show others this type of worshipful love is a sin known as inordinate affection, which is to turn certain people or things into an idol because of one’s excessive passion towards them.
Colossians 3:5 (KJB) Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection,…
I have always said that love is an extremely strong emotion, but you must be very careful about what you are going to place it on. For example, there is a huge difference between loving a neighbor, versus the overwhelming obsession and all-consuming desire that we must possess for our precious Lord Jesus. One is a kind-hearted friendship type of love, while the other is a fervent passion for God, one that leads to a complete obsession to be near Him, in order to worship and adore Him. To truly keep the first commandment we must love God with all of our heart, and to do this, you must devote the entirety of your energy or interest towards Him.
Jeremiah 29:13 (KJB) And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.
It’s pretty easy to see what is the obsession in somebody’s life, because their works will declare it. It is often displayed through the things that they seek after, the things that they want and the things that they obtain. Listen very closely people, if Jesus is not your first and all consuming love of your life, then other things are going to move into that position. If He is not your great obsession, then something else will take the place of Him in your heart. When this happens, men will start to worship and serve their wives, their children, and go after all of the things of this world instead, simply because the Lord isn’t their sincere obsession.
1 John 2:15-17 (KJB) Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love 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 pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
If people were brutally honest with themselves, I think a lot of them would have to admit that the things of God are really not the most important things in their life. Their hearts and minds are focused elsewhere as they head out into the world to make more money to pay off all of the debt for the things that they never really needed in the first place. Rather than simplifying their lives and being content, their hearts become consumed with all of the temporal concerns of this world. This is why the love of money is the root of all evil, because rather than having an obsession for God, they obsess on attaining Earthly things. Those desires are an open display of one’s mismanagement of the heart. Although Solomon was very wealthy, he wasn’t out in the world trying to attain riches. God gave them to him as a gift, because above and beyond anything else, his heart wanted wisdom. I’m sure that Solomon could have been dirt poor, but that wouldn’t have changed the great desire he had for the wisdom of God. The money was irrelevant, because whether he had it or didn’t, the treasure that he really wanted were found in Christ.
Everywhere Jesus went He was calling out to men to preach the gospel, but a lot of them just couldn’t do it because other things were far more important to them. That was quite different than the disciples who had walked away from their own jobs and other hindrances in their lives so they could be with the Lord all the time! I really believe that a lot of people who claim to be Christian today could never actually do what the disciples did. They claim that they have a relationship with God, but it only happens when it’s convenient for them or when they can squeeze Him into their busy schedule. That’s not a real relationship with God, it’s only a half-hearted attempt, one that God will spew out of His mouth.
Revelation 3:15-16 (KJB) I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
If it’s a chore to have a sincere and devoted prayer life with God, and people really don’t love God with all of their heart.
Deuteronomy 10:12 (KJB) And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
Our relationship with the Lord Jesus must be an all-consuming passion, one that must completely dwarf any other relationship in our lives. If Jesus is not one’s first and greatest love, then any decisions that they make will be made according to the will of others rather than Christ. When this happens, the love for them usurps your love for Christ Jesus. This is serious because it directly affects one’s own salvation. It is clear that in order to obtain eternal life, we must submit to the will of God rather than others. Men who submit to their wives, children, and even their own parents rather than the will of God are unworthy of eternal life. After all, if that is how unimportant Jesus is to them, then they really don’t deserve to be in heaven in the first place.
Matthew 10:37 (KJB) He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
Remember that if Jesus truly is your greatest love, then you must come out from the world and be separate. You will have to do this in regards to family members, relatives, in-laws and even grandparents who are caught up in false forms of Christianity. To join up and associate with them is to make yourself unworthy of God’s Kingdom. These are serious choices to make because you must choose who is going to be your greatest love of all. Whoever that is will determine where your true loyalties will lie.
So, when Jesus says do this, who will you be loyal to? When He calls out to men to preach the gospel, are you going to obey? When people persecute you and try to prevent the furtherance of the kingdom of God, will you get up and keep going? God will reward those who diligently seek and serve Him so make sure that you love Him above all others. In order to fulfill the first and great commandment He must be our first and greatest love, and continually remain,….
……Our Great Obsession
Let’s think about these things for right now. We can be found on your web browser by searching, tlkjbc where you can find our diaries distributed through various platforms. We are not associated, nor affiliated with any other religious groups. You can get our entire podcast feeds directly, along with transcripts at tlkjbc.com or I suppose that you could find us somewhere up here, in the Great Northern Minnesota woods. Peace to you all, and Lord willing, we will talk with you some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody.♥️
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