Satan called a worldwide convention.

The huge crowd hushed as he stepped up to speak, “We can’t keep the Christians from going to Church. We can’t keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth. We can’t even keep them from conservative values. But we can do something else.”

He paused, everyone listened.

“We can keep them from forming an intimate, abiding experience in Christ. If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to Church, let them have their conservitive lifestyles, but distract them from loving God, get their priorities off so they can’t gain that deep experience in Jesus Christ.

This is what I want you to do. Distract them from loving their Savior and maintaining a vital connection through their day!”

“How shall we do this?” shouted the hoards of demons.

“Simple: keep them so busy doing things for God that they fall out of love with Him. Invent unnumbered schemes to focus their minds on themselves, what they can do for Him, and how they can make up for their own sins.” he answered. Then just when they start to burn out give them a little dose of self righteousness. Then we can get them working ever harder trying to earn God’s favor.

“And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so the they leave with troubled consciences and unsettled emotions. Don’t let them encourage or uplift each other, keep those who are the gifted encouragers especially busy and worn out.

“Let them be involved in Church activities. But crowd their lives with so many good causes that they have no time to seek power from Christ. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for the good of the cause.”

It was quite a convention in the end. And the demons went eagerly to their assignments trying to cause Christians everywhere to get busy, busy, busy and rush here and there...

This little parable illustrates the sever danger of faling to keep a close eye on our priorities. It is impossible to serve God in a powerful and effective manner if we fail to keep the “main thing” in focus.

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”.

Mark 12:28-30 The main thing is loving God.

Pure devotion - an undivided heart.

Not just give place in your heart - but your whole heart.

Live a love for a spouse - Wholly devoted.

This is having the desire to give God first lace in everything in your life.

What does it mean to love God with all your heart ?

To do everything we do for Him from a LOVE motivation.

What other motivation is there ?

If I serve God to make up for sin I have sinned.

We are saved by grace and sanctified by grace.

Martin Luther - 95 thesis against indulgences - buying time off of purgatory.

Ro 1:17 the just shall live by faith.

To say that we can gain God’s acceptance apart from Christ is to deny Christ.

Some think they must live up to God’s standards themselves.

There are 613 commandments in the Old Testament Law.

Jesus intensified the Law - Matt 5.

Sometimes we make New Testament law.

If you don’t do this... then you are in trouble w/ God.

Gal 2:21 If we think we can keep the Law we nullify the cross.

Self rightiousness versus God’s righteousness.

People in the Church do things to glorify self - idolotry.

1st commandment - no other gods.

This is very subtle.

c.f. Rev 2:1-4 the Church at Eph. lost its first love.

Heart and soul are linked together :

DEUT 10:12 “And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.”

N.T. gr. - Psuche - our emotional being.

Loving God is not just something we do with the intellect, we do it with our emotions:

“People imagine that if they are occupied with the truth, the spiritual life will, as a matter of course, be strengthened. And this is by no means the case. The understanding deals with conceptions and images of divine things but it can not reach the real life of the soul.”

Some say “Your teaching was so informative...”

Information in its self is useless.

Our emotional love for God is expressed in :

1) Worship

2) Prayer

If you love someone you would tell them.

What if I told my wife I love her once every ten years ?

We are to be renewed in our minds :

Ro 12:2 Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,

Eph 4:23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.

“[The Christians] intelect bows before the Most High; not like a slave who bends his body because he must, but like the angel who prostrates himself because he loves to adore his Maker. His intellect is as fond of God as his imagination. “Oh!” he saith, “My God, I bless thee that thou art; for thou art my highest treasure, my richest and my rarest delight. I love thee with all my intellect; I have neither thought, nor judgement, nor conviction, nor reason, which I do not lay at thy feet, and consecrate to thine honor.”

The Christian faith is not a blind faith.

We should have BETTER logic, reasons, and answers than the world.

How do we love God with our minds ?

1 Thes 5:21 Test all things, hold fast to what is good.

Rev 2:2 “...you have tested those who say they are apostles and are not and have found them liars.”

1 Jn 4:1 “...Don not believe every spirit but test the spirits, whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world”.

Acts 17:11 “...and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so”

2 Tim 2:15 “Study to show yourself approved...”

3) Test what you already believe

“The hardest thing to do is put your doctrines on the alter and say “God, what do You say about these things ?”

Vines - Ability.

Same Gr. word is also translated might and power.

God doesn’t call us to love Him with strength we don’t have.

He gives us the ability to love Him.

PHIL 2:13 “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure”.

Strive for excellence in serving God :

ECCL 9:10 “What ever you hand finds to do, do it with your might...”

How do we strive for excellence ?

1) Know your spiritual gifts and develop them.

2) Set goals