Do Not Love the World
“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.” -1 John 2:15, ESV
The word love here is a form of the Greek word agape. It speaks of a love given over to another that springs from a heart of love. It’s the love that Jesus has for us. He has no reason to love us yet He does so unconditionally (Romans 5:8). We are not to have this kind of love for the world.
John is not talking about the literal world—the one of earth, wood, air, and people. John is talking about the spiritual world of the enemy. Remember what James 4:4 says, “You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”
We cannot ever love the things of God and also the things of the enemy. They are two totally different world systems. One, the way of the Father, is that of love, justice, holiness, righteousness, truth, and life, to mention just a few. The way of the enemy is that of hate, lying, and death. Yet so often, the enemy makes the dying way, the lying way, seem so much more attractive to us. This is what he did in the garden to Eve, then to Adam as well.
The writer of Hebrews states that sin is pleasurable for a season (Hebrews 11:25), and oh what truth. But sin is totally against all that God is and against all that God stands for. Everything about this world is dying and nothing of it has eternal value. The things of heaven, the things of the Lord, are the things of eternal value; they will be with the believer for all eternity.
It’s easy to say we love the Father and not the world. Yet it begs the question, do we show this in our actions? Do we show this in our walk? Do we show this in our talk? If someone was to look at our lives, what would they deduce from it? Would they say we loved the world or the Father?
We need to look at our lives, look at where we spend our time and invest our time? Does more, much more, go to the Father, or to the enemy and the way of this world.
