Who Do We Choose to Love? The World or God
Dr. Jerry Branch
1 John 2:15-17
1 John 2:15-17 (ESV) 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. 16 For all that is in the world-the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life-is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
In the previous verses, John laid out the good news that God was NOT giving the Christians a brand new command (none of us like ADDITIONAL rules or laws)...
but rather, rather God only expected the Christians to obey the same one He had already spoken...
so, that means that we are to Keep His Commands,
and we are to love the brethren,
and we are to love God.
And we're to still make disciples...
And now, though, he states that the Christian is NOT supposed to love the world and the things of the world.
So a good way to look at this part of John's letter, is to ask ourselves the question,
'who do we choose to love, and how can you tell?'
So...Who DO you love?
But before we ask that question, we should realize that there are 2 problems that try to keep us from really giving honest assessment to the question.
First off we need to realize that we usually don't 'define' love in our own lives the same as God does, that's because we tend to define or 'visualize' love more as sexual as in 'making love,'
And on top of that, we tend to see love as some sort of feeling or emotion,
For instance, I really LOVE chocolate!
Or I really LOVE my house.
Next this NEXT PROBLEM, and it's really one that is the hard one to deal with...
you see there's a real problem in that we tend to go and believe the lies that seem to tell us what we're thinking is correct...
in other words, we seem to accept as truth what is right in our own eyes rather than believing ...
Dr. Jerry Branch
1 John 2:15-17
1 John 2:15-17 (ESV) 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. 16 For all that is in the world-the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life-is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
In the previous verses, John laid out the good news that God was NOT giving the Christians a brand new command (none of us like ADDITIONAL rules or laws)...
but rather, rather God only expected the Christians to obey the same one He had already spoken...
so, that means that we are to Keep His Commands,
and we are to love the brethren,
and we are to love God.
And we're to still make disciples...
And now, though, he states that the Christian is NOT supposed to love the world and the things of the world.
So a good way to look at this part of John's letter, is to ask ourselves the question,
'who do we choose to love, and how can you tell?'
So...Who DO you love?
But before we ask that question, we should realize that there are 2 problems that try to keep us from really giving honest assessment to the question.
First off we need to realize that we usually don't 'define' love in our own lives the same as God does, that's because we tend to define or 'visualize' love more as sexual as in 'making love,'
And on top of that, we tend to see love as some sort of feeling or emotion,
For instance, I really LOVE chocolate!
Or I really LOVE my house.
Next this NEXT PROBLEM, and it's really one that is the hard one to deal with...
you see there's a real problem in that we tend to go and believe the lies that seem to tell us what we're thinking is correct...
in other words, we seem to accept as truth what is right in our own eyes rather than believing ...
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