As a young boy growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s, I was engulfed in a nintendo culture filled with mesh-shirts (along with many other fashion tragedies), lines in peoples hair, and light up shoes. As a young boy, I LOVED sports. It really didn’t matter what sport, although I had some favorites. My days, weeks and year were spent honing the skills that were sure to one day make me a professional athlete. Growing up with two brothers helped fuel my ambitious dreams. We would spend our days playing basketball, football, baseball, golf, and pretty much anything else we could turn into a competition. When we weren’t playing sports, we were watching sports. We had our favorite athletes and we knew all of their stats from their rookie season to the present. You could say that our hearts were set on sports. We set our affections and our thoughts on sports.
As adults perhaps you have those things that hold the affections of your heart. Maybe its a favorite TV show, or reading, or automobiles, or some other hobby. We have opportunities all of the time to have the affections of our heart drift to things other than on the very thing that they were created for. In it’s most innocent form this behavior is called distraction; in its most incessant form we call this idolatry. We were created to worship a God who’s calls himself Jealous. He does not desire to compete for your heart’s affection. As you journey through your day, there is a simple truth that we see in scripture. It is a truth that can fill your days with purpose and your future with possibility. Here is the scripture I am referring to:
Colossians 3:2New King James Version (NKJV)
2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
In another translation the word mind is replaced with the word affections. In either case it is the desire of the Lord that you set your whole life upon Him. This is a great scripture to memorize and to meditate on. In every situation it seems that we could restate this verse to ourselves and see where our motives and our hearts are. In a recent sermon we talked about the fact that stuff is just stuff and stuff is a test. What holds your heart today, is it “stuff”? Is it something other than the Lord? Is it possible that you need to refocus yourself and do what Colossians tells us: “To set your mind (affections) on things above and not on things of this earth.”
Be blessed in the Lord as you center your life around Him.