Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

1 John 2:15 – 17

John is refreshingly simple, direct and profound, and, I might say, quite unsettling.  He says, Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them.

He simplifies things so that the truth can be grasped.  He believes that we were made to love so we will love something!  He believes we will love either this world or God, the Father. It is as simple as that.  I should have thought that love of self should be mentioned, or love of tribe or nation.  Not so.  As human beings we love either this world or God, our Father in heaven.

Having made this point, he describes “the world.”  It is being truly self-centered, craving to satisfy our desires, wanting what we see others having, thankful to be alive but having no idea why. That “lust” comes, not from God, but from this world.  I think John is using desire and lust as more or less the same because they both seek to placate the self.  So we are driven by lust.  Then the shock comes, lust burns out, God is forever. 

That being so, whoever does the will of God lives forever.  God is alive forever.  Those who do God’s will live forever.  Can it be simpler than that?  Or as difficult to believe? And even more difficult to live out day by day?  It is the task of the Holy Spirit of God to enable us to love God like that and to turn our backs on the hankering after the baubles of this world.  Let us embrace this new and living way.