1 John 2:15
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

There's something great about being the dad of a little girl. It's more than the little picnics of plastic food she fixes for us and it's more than how she pushes her hair out of her face. There's more to it than her sitting in my lap as we share a bowl of cereal (Honey Nuts and Oats is our cereal of choice!) and it isn't just the way she smiles when she jumps on my stomach to tell me a story. It's not any one of those moments or the countless other ones I could name. It's all of them. It's the way she just wants to be with me.

Surely this is what our verse is speaking about. It isn't just that the world is bad and God is better. I mean, have you ever thried to convince a truly happy person that they are miserable without Jesus in their life? I have, and it didn't go well. In fact, they thought I was crazy. But isn't that how we've always taught this passage? We've said that if we enjoy anything in this life we're being unfaithful to God. But this verse is about not giving the world the love that only God deserves. And if you stop and think about it, why would we?

I love sports. I'm nuts about the Wolfpack, the Panthers, the Dolphins and the Bobcats. Call me crazy, but there's something about animal names that makes me want to boil some peanuts, plop on the couch for a couple of hours to see sweaty men grunt. But what I feel about those games cannot even compare to how I love Jesus. I mean, not even close. Game over.

I'm glad that God lets us enjoy life. I think I'd get pretty bored as a monk. But the point is that our enjoyment of this world can never - should never - take the place of the One who created it. Far be it from me to ever hurt God the way it would hurt me if Sydney chose a toy to be her father. I want my love for Him to far outweigh any pleasure of this world. Don't you?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm late for a plastic dinner party.