Lesson 14: God’s Patient Love Puts Up With Our Continual Idolatry

1 John 2:15-16 "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world."

Jesus not only came to forgive us of idolatry, but also to tell us to stay away from it. We are to stop loving the things of this world!

It would seem right that someone who has freely been saved from eternal destruction in hell would naturally want to stop committing idolatry against the person responsible for doing that, but we keep on loving things even more!

People of God, how many things in life do we need? How sad it is that we all joke about the rat race of life and how it only leads to an early grave, yet we keep on running after it faster and faster and faster. That kind of life will not only kill your physical life, but also your spiritual life. Whether you realize it or not, when we keep on loving things again and again even after we are saved, we are choosing an early grave over God! We choose a casket over Christ!

Oh, but that is not all! It gets worse. Look at the problem from more than what people have to say about this behavior; read what the Bible says about it.

Philippians 3:7-8 "But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ."

The point is, whether you realize it or not, when we keep on loving things again and again even after we have been saved, we are choosing a pile of trash over God. In fact, the word there for "rubbish" in the Greek literally means "dung." So that means if we are loving things, we are also choosing a pile of dung over Christ! Once again, we must put it into context. How would you feel if somebody did that to you? Be honest! If somebody treated us like that, what would we do? We would want to destroy them on the spot!

But the good news is that God is not like us! He is Patient! Out of patience He not only forgives us of our sin, but He puts up with our sin again and again and again, like a parent with a naughty child! Every single day! And to think the whole time, He does not have to! Especially after all He has done. That is what I call love!

Thought Question: After all the Lord has done for us, how should we then live?
Verses to Consider: Ezekiel 33: 10 – 11 - "And you, son of man, say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus have you said: ‘Surely our transgression and our sins are upon us, and we rot away because of them. How then can we live?’ Say to them, ‘As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel’?”