Do Not Love The World

I John 2:15-17

Each year, billions of dollars are spent trying to save our planet. It is all an exercise in futility because this world is going to be destroyed. Please do not misunderstand, we need to take care of earth. It is the only planet we have, and God told mankind to tend to it. However, we cannot save it. It will not be destroyed by a comet, global warming, or even aliens. Those things make for good movies, but God has already told us how He is going to destroy it. No matter what we do, this planet's existence is counting down.

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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. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.

I John 2:15-17

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As Christians, we are not supposed to fall in love with this world, the things in it, or even our life here. If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, this is the most wretched existence you will ever have. It gets infinitely better when you leave here. However, if we are all honest, we struggle with this.

This is the only life we have ever known. No matter how much we study Heaven in the Bible, it is still just words on a page and something we try to imagine. We have never seen it, nor experienced it. On the other hand, we experience this world every day. It has its ups and downs, but it is ours (or so we think).

John understood something that many people in churches don't grasp. This world and everything in it are tainted by sin. I'm not saying everything is sinful, but it is all tainted by sin. That is why everything wears out, decays, rusts, or dies. Sin, and death by that sin, have caused this world to break down. We should not love something that is temporal and tarnished. We should love that which is eternal, holy, and righteous. We should love the life to come.

In this life, we work for things that John says fit into three categories: 1) The Lust of the Flesh, 2) The Lust of the Eyes, and 3) The Pride of Life. None of these glorify God. The lusts of the flesh are those things that we desire in our body. This can be food, drink, clothing, and shelter. It can also be desires for fulfillment of love, peace, sex, or anything else that meets the needs or wants of our body.

The Lust of the eyes is anything we see, but don't need to survive. When one house will meet our needs, but another one looks better, that is the lust of the eyes. When a used vehicle will meet our needs (and budget), but we want that brand new vehicle with all the bells and whistles, that is the lust of the eyes. It is desiring that which we see, but don't need.

The pride of life is that which strokes our ego. When we do not get along with others, it is usually rooted in one, or both, party's pride. When we feel entitled to something that is not ours, that is pride. When we think ourselves better than God in some way, that is pride. Pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18).

Paul told the Colossians, "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:1-2). This is something that most all of us can do better at. We get so comfortable that we only look around, and never look up. We give our whole life to acquiring things that will one day burn up. God wants His children to work for things that will last forever and have infinite value.

Father, so often we cannot see what You want because we only see what we want. We do not invest in Heavenly things nearly as much as we invest in things here. Help us to have a Godly perspective of this world and the things that are in it.