April 29, 2015

1 John 2:15-24

 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”.

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This may be why our lives are so difficult…we tend to love the world. Hard not to…it’s where we live.

What’s not to love? Ice cream? Football? Music? Even God loves grandchildren! But, John is referring to the lust of the flesh (physical appetite) and the lust of the eyes (emotional appetite)  and the boastful pride of life (spiritual appetite). None of that comes from God.
Yes, there is plenty of that in the world as well.

Forgive the crass example but, Jim Croce wrote a song that included these words: “five short minutes of loving got me twenty long years in jail”. The (not so hidden) inference is all the sex in the world can’t last long enough to fully satisfy. The same is true of every other passion the world offers us. In fact, John says  “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; And, so it goes…with the pleasures of this world
But…” the one who does the will of God lives forever”.

Forever is a long time. We do we do than…when all the things we loved are gone? If we build our lives around things that can’t last, our world will end up empty. Then, what do we hold on to? It could be a troubled time.
So, ultimately, John says we need “an anointing from the Holy One that will abide in us… so that we may also abide in the Son and in the Father”. Only then, can we fall “out of love” with the world and fall in love with the things that truly last.

Live boldly out there today…

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