Love for God or Love for the World? (Based on Matthew 12, Luke 12)

Once, when Jesus was teaching the people, His mother and His brethren came to the door of the house where He was and sent someone to tell Him that they would like to speak with Him. He turned to His disciples, looking affectionately upon them, and said, “Behold My mother and My brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother” (Matthew 12:49b&50).

All those who truly love God belong to the family of Jesus—all whose hearts have been made new by the Holy Spirit and have repented and come to Christ for pardon. What a happy family this is! God is their Father, and He says to them, “Ye are My sons and daughters.” Jesus Christ is their Brother; and He “sticketh closer” than any earthly brother, for “He is a brother born for adversity,” or trouble. The Holy Spirit is their Comforter in all their sorrows, for Jesus said, “I will send you another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth.”

There ought to be no anger, no quarreling, in this happy family. All should be love among them. Christ has said, “By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35). A home is prepared for this family, not a home on earth but in heaven. Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions...I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).

How different was the rich man who loved the things of this world. In His parable about this man, and in other parables, Jesus warned the people against loving the world instead of God. There was a man who had very great riches and possessions. He was so rich that he did not know what to do with all his goods. He said to himself, “What shall I do? I must pull down my barns and build bigger ones to store all my fruits and my goods. And then I shall have great possessions laid up for many years, and I can take my ease, and eat and drink, and be merry.”

Was it wrong that this man was rich? No, we read that “God putteth down one, and setteth up another” (Psalm 75:7). Think also of Abraham, David, and Solomon, all of whom were rich men but were also children of God. What was wrong was that this man trusted more in his riches than in God. He thought that by storing up all his possessions he would be well supplied for many years. This man fulfilled what is written in Proverbs 11:28, “He that trusteth in his riches shall fall.”

For God said, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and then what will become of all these good things which thou hast laid up for many years?” Before morning, that poor man’s soul was in another world—but in what world? Not in heaven, for he did not love God and did not belong to His family. God says in His Word that “no covetous man, who is an idolater” can enter there. The rich man had forgotten God while he lived, and when he died, he was sent away from God for ever. Of what use to him were his riches then?

How wicked and foolish it is to trust in worldly things and to love them so much. The Bible says, “If riches increase, set not your heart upon them” (Psalm 62:10b). We must soon lose them. They may be taken from us, or we may die and be taken from them, for we cannot carry riches with us to the grave. “For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out” (1 Timothy 6:7).

We should pray to be enabled to set our affections “on things above, not on things on the earth,” to seek for God. His people, when they die, receive the crown of glory which God will give to all those who love Him and the “inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away...” (1 Peter 1:4). Those are the true riches.

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