The goal of God’s commandment is love: a love from a pure heart, good conscience, and sincere faith. True faith seeks God and results in love, marking us as disciples. Without love, our spiritual journey risks missing the point entirely.
Physical, mental, and emotional growth may be important, but it’s even more important to grow in the spiritual dimension of our nature. We need — every day — to be moving away from the mortality of the body and toward the immortality of the spirit.
Christianity is a path through the world, not a detour. As Jesus prayed for His apostles, we too are called to live “in the world” but not be “of the world,” rejecting worldly values and dedicating ourselves to God’s mission of compassion.
It simply can’t be said too often: we must seek God with our whole hearts. Only a single-minded focus on our Heavenly Father will get us where we want to be. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8).
What if we find ourselves, as most of us do, already among the affluent? Then we need to be honest about the difficulties and dangers that face us, and we need to do whatever it takes to compensate for the disadvantage of our possessions.
There aren’t many Christians who wouldn’t say that God is their most valuable treasure. But where is the evidence of that? The real location of our treasure is most easily discovered by looking at where we invest most of our energy and enthusiasm.
God’s patience is great, but it is not open-ended. Sooner or later, our opportunity for repentance will be interrupted. This is not a matter of “if” — it is only a matter of “when.” We are encouraged, therefore, to seek God while He may be found.
What if we don’t see our need for God? If our hearts tell us that our desire is less than it should be, what can we do? We can begin by “desiring to desire” God. We can at least make the choice to lay down our rebellion against Him.
If we find ourselves failing consistently to obey God and to enjoy the good things that come from obedience, then it’s time to stop trimming the leaves of the tree and strike at the taproot of the problem: our lack of love for God and other people.
In assessing our character, all anyone ever needs to know is the answer to this question: how deep is our love for our Creator? When that question has been answered accurately, the very root of our personal being will have been discovered.