“Be awfully careful of losing your first love for Jesus. Make sure you guard your heart, so that the things that He desires remain the desires of your heart. If you allow the busyness of your world to intrude on the important issues of your heart, you will soon lose the perspective that Jesus has. You will become self-focused. You will become uncaring for those who are perishing. You will become weary in well-doing.

"You will become cold to the issues that are important to Me. You will go days at a time and never weep for one soul.

"It is a dangerous place to be. Make sure you never go there, OK? If you are already there, turn around before it is too late. Turn before you become so cold to the ways of Jesus that you care little if He is glorified in your life or not.”

Psalm 106:12-15 AMP

12) Then [Israel] believed His words [trusting in, relying on them]; they sang His praise.

13) But they hastily forgot His works; they did not [earnestly] wait for His plans [to develop] regarding them,

14) But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted and tried to restrain God [with their insistent desires] in the desert.

15) And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls and [thinned their numbers by] disease and death.

Haggai 1:7-10 AMP

7) Thus says the Lord of hosts: Consider your ways (your previous and present conduct) and how you have fared.

8) Go up to the hill country, and bring lumber and rebuild [My] house, and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, says the Lord [by accepting it as done for My glory and by displaying My glory in it].

9) You looked for much [harvest], and behold, it came to little; and even when you brought that home, I blew it away. Why? says the Lord of hosts. Because of My house, which lies waste while you yourselves run each man to his own house [eager to build and adorn it].

10) Therefore the heavens above you [for your sake] withhold the dew, and the earth withholds its produce.

We live in a society that hates to lose or settle for second best in anything. We also despise paying too much for anything. We will search the globe for the best deal on whatever we choose to purchase, squeezing pennies from a retailer so that we can have the satisfaction in our hearts that we did not get taken.

What amazes me is that we don’t even seem to care that we are being ripped off each and every day when it comes to the things of God. We settle for scraps from His table because we won’t spend enough time with Him to participate in the things that He considers important. We live a mediocre life in Jesus, when the intimacy He has with His Father is available to us. We dabble in the things of the world, when we are called to live in the heavenlies. We fret and worry about fleeting issues and set aside eternal wealth without giving a thought to what we have squandered. We are daily being ripped off by the enemy of our souls and seemingly never give it a thought. How foolish!

Teach me to value what is truly valuable, Lord,

Jim Corbett