Is Love Blind?

Have you ever met two people who were “so in love” it seemed like they were blind to the realities of their own relationship and the world around them?  Love, or probably more accurately, infatuation, has an incredible ability to impair people’s sense of reality.  I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met who are in bad and unhealthy relationships, destructive to themselves and their relationships with people who truly love them…and they can’t even see it.  Or perhaps they just don’t want too. 

I’m sure this is the way Paul felt about Demas.  In 2 Timothy 4:10 Paul says, “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me…”  Obviously at one time Demas appeared to be a faithful follower of Jesus and a fellow worker for the gospel alongside Paul.  At one time Demas was putting God first, but unfortunately he lost his first love for something far less. 

What does it mean to fall in love with this present world?  I find this to be a very convicting question when I apply it to my own life.  Any honest examination of my own heart would unearth some unhealthy loves.  By God’s grace I have not abandoned Christ or his calling on my life for these loves, but they exist nonetheless.  Let me be vulnerable with you and admit that one of those loves that I am wary of is the approval of others.  O how I love the admiration of people to my own detriment.  How do our earthly attachments blind you and me?  What are we not seeing?  Take an honest look at your own life and reckon with whatever it might be that is in competition with your faithfully following Jesus Christ.