squeezing out God

I read this morning here in Madrid. It is snowing outside which is extremely unusual here. When I awoke at 630 am everything was white.

15Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. 16Practically everything that goes on in the world--wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important--has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. 17The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out--but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

I feel that this verse best sums up "life in a material world" and its effect on the follower of Christ. It is a challenge. It is a temptation. It is a subtle manner in which we may live. We try to live not of the world but in it as we learn in youth group in the 80s but we get sucked in by little choices as time goes on.

We want our own way.
We want things for ourself
We want to appear important.

All of these things can be going on in your life and you not really recognize it but then you realize that you have squeeze out God. You have lost your first love (revelation church)

We become as the paraphraser of the Message says: isolated from God. Help me today Lord to not make those type of decisions. Help me to include you in on my life and my decisions. I do not want to squeeze you out of my life. When I do ... I lose. I lose in my realtionship with you and with my realtnioship with other people that I love and other people that I do not even know.

lmc