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John

Don’t Get Caught Up in the World

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There’s so Much More Out There

It makes sense that we get caught up in the world. It’s where we live and what we know. Every day we take part in it. If we’re not careful, it’s where our awareness stops. It becomes all we focus on.

I’m not saying we should abandon the world. What I am saying is that we need to balance the physical world we live in daily, and the Spiritual world of God and eternity.

This morning on Albert Mohler’s, The Briefing, he talked about how humans make decisions. Either by rational thinking or intuition and sometimes the answer isn’t as rational as you might think.

This podcast was focused on the Nobel Prize winning economist and author of the 2011 book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman’s assisted suicide. Mohler’s question was why would someone so intelligent make such a decision? He concluded that it was due to Kahneman’s belief that this world is all that there is, and he wanted control over his death.

This kind of thinking is worldly.

In Matthew 21:1-11, Jesus sends two of His disciples to a village to get a donkey. He tells them where they will find a donkey and her colt. If anyone asks, the disciples are to say, “The Lord needs him,” and they will be okay with it.

The disciples went and did as Jesus instructed them.

Jesus knew there would be a donkey and where it would be. He knew that anyone who asked would be okay with them taking the donkeys. He also knew that people would celebrate His arrival when He rode the donkey into Jerusalem.

They thought He was a king that was going to come in and take over. If they were His followers they would be rewarded in a worldly way.

The problem is that the people were looking at this from a worldly perspective.

They missed the point.

Too often, we do the same thing. We get focused on our daily routines and lives and neglect the eternal.

It shouldn’t be all one or the other. There should be a balance of both. In John 17:16-26, we are told to live in the world, not get caught up with it. The world shouldn’t be our focus. God and the eternal should be.

What’s Your Greatest Treasure?

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It’ll Be Best If It Isn’t Monetary

What is most important to you? Is it money, your job, family, social status, recognition from your peers? Not any of these things are bad or unimportant. We need to be clear on what our priorities are.

In the children’s message, Jim Miller shared a math problem that puts things into perspective. GOOD minus the letters G O D leaves a big fat zero.

Life without GOD leaves us with nothing.

In John 12:1-8, Mary got it. She poured a whole bottle of expensive oil on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. When she did this Judas was mad. He thought this was a waste. We’re talking about an amount equal to a year’s wages. In today’s dollars, this would have been a bottle of oil, worth almost $60,000.

This helps us see where Judas’ heart was and where Mary’s was.

Last week we talked about how the disciples were blind to how Jesus was going to rule. They were looking at things from a worldly perspective … not a Spiritual one.

The actions of Mary in today’s Scripture would have been scandalous then. A woman would not be out in public with her hair down, would not approach a man, let alone touch one. Mary did all these things.

Mary was focused on Jesus. She understood who Jesus is. This is the third time she was at His feet. She didn’t pour out a few drops of oil.

She poured out all that she had.

We need to pour out all that we have on Jesus. As we pour over Jesus, He will pour over us.

Mary gave her greatest treasure to the Greatest Treasure.

We need to do the same thing. We need to give all that we have and all that we are to God.