What Really Matters

I spent the last week at Impact 2011 Teen Camp with some of the teens for my church and other churches.  It was an amazing time.  Very rarely does the opportunity come to let the stresses and pains of this world fall away and just enjoy being with people and with God.  Relationships.  Loving and being loved by God.  Loving and being loved by people.  That is what will last in eternity.

I got to have several amazing conversations with some pretty cool people during the week about the most important things going on in their lives.  What was the common ground of each one of these conversations?  Each one involved a relationship.

What is crazy is that our American culture tries to build up walls between people.  It keeps people working long hours away from their families to buy things they don't need.  It tells people that happiness is one more product away, so, in their emptiness, they grasp at the material instead of at the eternal.

"But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs" (1 Timothy 6:9-10).

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21).

Yet, because of our fallen nature, we forget the things that truly matter.  We forget what will last for eternity.  The big TV and the cool, new cell phone will fade.  What matters is who you love.  Jesus said that we should love God and love people.  Those are the two greatest commandments.  If you do these two things, Jesus said, "You will live" (Luke 10:28).


How do we free ourselves from materialism?  How do we live to love God and people?
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2).

Set your sights on what is really important today, and forget about all that other stuff.