But seek first his kingdom…Matthew 6:33 

She loved her house….

Her house meant more to her than anything…

She’d lived there since she was 4 years old.

She lived there with her mother and father and sister and her dog with black fur and a big white circle around one eye…

She went away to college, but moved back home to take care of her father after her mother died.

She married, and brought her child home to the house…

She divorced.

Her child grew up and left…

But she stayed in the house.

She stayed until she was too frail to care for herself.

Why did she love that house so much?

Because she’d always been there?

Because it represented security?

Because it offered certainty through her mother’s death, her father’s death, her divorce?

I don’t know.  But I know she loved that house.

She focused on it every day…spent most of her time inside its walls or in its yard.

When she died a few years ago, the house was sold.

She had given her love to that house…

It never loved her back.

What does God say about loving the things in our lives?

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.  Matthew 6:33

Where does God want us to focus our love?

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’   This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.  Mathew 22: 37-38

Why should we love God?

We love because he first loved us.  1 John 4:19

Why should we love others?

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.   Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.  1 John 4:7-8

Without God’s love, we are nothing…

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 1 Corinthians 13:1

 

Note: This post first appeared in January, 2014