Do not love the world
1 John 2:15 If we claim to love God and yet love the world’s materialism, our claim is false.
“Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
1 John 2:15 NASB1995
Today’s devotional examines this short verse from John the Evangelist’s first epistle, written in Ephesus to an unknown audience of Christians. 1 John deals mainly with love and fellowship with God, and was also instrumental in explaining to the readers how to discern true teachers: through their ethics, their proclamation of Jesus in the flesh, and their love for others.
In today’s verse, John is highlighting a sin that threatens our relationship with God — loving the world. John isn’t calling out the Earth, the globe on which we live; instead, he’s referring to sinful humanity, rebelling against God. God loves His creation, as in John 3:16 (“For God so loved the world…”), but not humanity when it directly disobeys Him.
An AI representation of the tower of Babel, created by Dall-E 3
In Genesis 11, the Bible helps us understand this point. It speaks of humanity’s rebellion against God at the tower of Babel. Nimrod was an anti-God leader who organized the rebellion against God’s command for humanity to disperse over the surface of the earth. By building the tower of Babel, Nimrod and his followers were distrusting God’s word by trying to protect against another global flood.
Our world system is embodied in the story of the tower of Babel. We have seen remarkable progress over the millennia of recorded history, but all that improvement in technology, organization, and (to a much lesser degree) government has not made humanity any better. It has made mankind better off, and we like that. That is what makes us tend to fall in love with the world. However, the Babel story also tells us one inescapable fact — our world system will never win out over God.
So John is telling us not to love the world’s ways of doing things. A lot of mainstream churches are now loving the world rather than following God’s commandments. The world wants us to love it, giving our attention, money, and time to it rather than to the things of God. Almost everything in our consumer-oriented world is distracting us from God and demanding our money. The world rewards those who love it with status, prestige, honor, power, and comfort. All of this earthly reward is at the loss of our rewards in heaven.
One might misconstrue this verse as warning us not to love the beauty of God’s creation. In a way this is true; we must always love the Creator before His creation. But the true warning is against loving the materialistic world system, an idol that is against God.
The last part of this verse — “if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” tells us that if we claim to love God and yet love the world’s materialism, our claim is false.
For many centuries (and even now), this was interpreted by some who felt that in order to be a true Christian and show your love for God instead of the world, you’d “leave” the world and live a cloistered life in a convent or monastery. The problems with this interpretation are that eventually the world encroaches on the solitary life, and that Jesus wanted us to be in the world (helping others and bringing them to Him), but not of the world (see John 17:14-18).
Following the wisdom of this verse means weighing every action in life. On one side is the world and all of its treasures during this life, on the other is the promise of heaven and eternal life. Which will you choose?
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Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Father in heaven, I thank You for making me a new creation in Christ and giving me a new nature. Now that I am in Him, this world is not my home, and I have become a citizen of heaven. Remind me daily to avoid worldly pursuits, instead walking in my new life to Your praise and glory. In the name of Your son and my Savior Jesus Christ I pray, AMEN.