“When we settle for less than God’s best, we become people with disordered loves and distorted appetites.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – July 28, 2026
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. Matthew 6:24
I recall a conversation with a friend in my university years. I expressed how difficult it could be as a Christian to hold on to biblical standards when everyone around me lived by such different ones. My friend replied, “But doesn’t God know you live in the real world?” My friend, while meaning well, essentially meant that God needed to adjust his expectations to the times and my whims, because, after all, everyone else was living that way. But he got the essential point backward: God’s way is Reality; the world’s ways are counterfeit. If I find myself relating wrongly to God, his Word, and his design for his world, it is I, not God, who needs to adjust.
Yet so many of us would rather accept the counterfeit and blend in than make anyone feel uncomfortable or incur criticism. So we relegate the things of God to a small window of time on Sundays and spend the rest of the week trying to secure our membership in the world’s good books. But living distinctive lives without compromise is exactly what Christ does expect from his followers. He calls us the salt and light of the world (Matthew 5:13-14) and warned that we would be outcasts in this world for belonging to him and his relentlessly unworldly kingdom (John 15:18-21). We are called not to be conformists, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds to know – and show – God’s perfect ways (Romans 12:2). The bar is clearly set for us, and yes, it is as high as it can be. Yet, conforming to the world’s way of doing things is so very easy, it almost happens without our noticing it.
The slippery slope into compromise, according to John, is an issue of love. If we are not careful to cultivate a love for God and the things of God, our loves become disordered. When we feed ourselves on a diet of base ideas and entertainment rather than on what is good and true and noble and nourishing to our souls, we lose our appetite for the good. We are like children who have feasted on junk food for so long, they have lost all taste for real, nutritious fare. Of course we don’t want to become spiritual snobs, snubbing anything that is not of the highest order. But when we come to recognize the disordered states of our own hearts and our helplessness to change on our own efforts, we should be nothing but humbled. For it is only in coming to the feast that the Lord has laid for us, time and time again, and tasting what is truly good, that our tastes – our loves – can be transformed. So come and see that the Lord is good, and don’t settle for less than his best.
Prayer
Lord, please order my loves rightly. May I come to love God and the things of God with all my heart so that anything other would have no appeal to me, not only for the sake of my own soul, but so that I may be true salt and light in this world until your Kingdom comes. Amen.
Application
It’s been said that a good way to measure our loves is to examine our calendars and bank statements. Examine with the Lord where you are spending your time, money, and affections and let him guide you to any changes you may need to make to your diet.
Related Reading
Joshua 24:15; 1 Kings 18:21; 1 John 2:15; Romans 6:16
Worship Resource
The Petersens: Be Thou My Vision
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