Description
Reflecting on 1 John 2:15: Love Not the World
In this episode, we dwell on 1 John 2:15 which advises us not to love the… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Today’s verse needs some proper reflection and meditation. It’s 1 John chapter 2 verse 15. 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.
So what does this verse mean for us today? What it mustn’t mean, what it can’t mean is that we don’t love creation, because creation was made by God. God saw it and said that it was good. I know that sin has spoiled it, but this is something that God is preserving for us.
And it can’t mean that we don’t love the people in the world. Because God loved that world, the people in the world, so much that he sent Jesus to die for them.
So perhaps it means, perhaps it means to us that we are not to love the systems of the world. We are not to love those institutions and decisions and ways of behaving that are opposed to God.
And so in practice that means that we have to reflect on this, we have to engage in some self reflection too. Ask ourselves, have we become too attached towards things that are opposed to the ways of God? This is simply to give us another benchmark, another compass point, that we can turn to and decide whether or not we are going to proceed the way God wants us to.
Lord God, please help us with this. It is very easy for us to be seduced by the things around us, in culture, in our communities, in society. There are many things here that are competing for our attention and are drawing us away from You, Lord. But we want to come back to you, God, and make you once more our first love, knowing that your love is in us and that we are reflecting that love back to you, God. For your glory and for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.
