Do Not Love the World

1 John 2:15 states, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." which is a pretty serious accusation. Breaking this down the love of the Father is not in you if you love the world or the things in this world. Our culture of capitalism seems to thrive on making money, earning enough to buy whatever we want. Working hard is not a sin, is it?

Working hard is not a sin, is it?

For clarity, John keeps writing in verse 16, "For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world." Desires or lusts of the flesh and lusts of the eyes, and pride of life. These are worldly loves.

What do you want out of life?

If you truly believe God is in control, and God blesses who he chooses to bless, then when you are making money do you think it is all about you and your pride in life? Or is your hard work a way to justify the lust of your eyes? If God has blessed you what do you do with the blessing? This is why God says it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven because we do have this pride of life. We do believe that when we put in extra time we earn for ourselves things of this world that we want. That is when it becomes sin.

1 Corinthians 10:1-5 "For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness." These people saw the mighty hand of God, but couldn't put the world behind them. The love of the Father was not in them.

The love of the Father was not in them.

What John is trying to reinforce is that to be in Christ is not to be in the world. If a religious leader is telling you that following God means that you will be blessed in the desires of the flesh, then the Father is not in him. What happened to the early church? The wealth they must have gained being so close to God, all that persecution must have been fake news. Job's story probably wasn't meant to be in the Bible either. Think about this point of view. When good people are having a hard time are you going to parrot what Job's friends told Job?

What is the answer then? 1 John 2:3-6 says, "And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says 'I know him' but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked."

Jesus did not give in to the things of this world when Satan offered them to him. His life was serving the Father because the Father was in him and kept the commands of God. Jesus glorified God up to his death on the cross, not to earning worldly lusts.

The ability to make money or to be blessed by God with money is not a sin. Having a nice car or house is not a sin. How is your money used to glorify God? "Look everyone, I can afford a new BMW, praise God!" or "Look everyone, I have a private jet, praise God!" Those are worldly things, and if honoring God by spending money on yourself, then the love of the world is in you not the love of the Father. Pray for discernment and ask God to lead you if you have been blessed with wealth, don't follow someone's advice that loves flesh, things, or has pride in this life.

John's letter is to fellow believers and he wants to remind us that Christ died as a propitiation for our sins. We are not perfect and Christ is our advocate. However, if God is in us then our mindset should be on heavenly things. Our identity comes from following God's commandments and not wanting to look good to the world. This is a hard concept since we are sinful by nature, but once the Father is in us we should be trying to walk as Jesus walked.