Love not the World: Part 1

NOTE: The Journal Entry below dated Tuesday June 17, 2008, Entry: 2 is taken from my old Journal, entitled: "Living between the Transient and the Real." May the Lord be pleased to bless it to whoever reads it. This is part one of four parts on "Love not the World."

1 John 2:15 “Do not love the world or the things in the world...”  (ESV).  Been enjoying meditating upon 1 John 2:15-17 of lately. The clear instructions by John here is to simply not love the things of this present world. We are to love our fellow man to Christ, but never to love them above Christ. To love other things, or to allow other things to take the place of our time with Christ is idolatry. We are to die to the world and its corrupt system. The Apostle Paul said “The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” (Gal.6:14, ESV). I believe the word “love” in our theme text here, refers to our seat of affections: the heart. This of course refers to the direction of our will and where we find our joy in the most. That is usually where our love most is! “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matt. 6:21, KJV). Therefore we need to more earnestly heed the Apostle Paul’s words, “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Col. 3:2, KJV). The Title of L. E. Maxwell’s book puts the subject in a most sobering perspective. “Born to Die.” From the time we first trusted in Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour, we are born to die. There is a twofold truth to this:

(1.) Being born once, we were born to die under the curse of sin, destined to be judged (Rom. 5:12; Heb. 9:27). The psalmist David describes our first birth as follows, “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51: 5). Since such a person is only born once and under the curse of sin, he is subject to the passing kingdom of man. The remedy, "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3: 3, 7).

(2.) To be born again, we are now fellow citizens of the kingdom of God. We are also born to die, only this time we are called to die to ourselves (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 1:21). Our earthly, mortal bodies are still subject to death, but our new man [inner man] is free from the curse of death. The Apostle Paul explains the process like this, "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day" (2 Cor. 4: 16).

We are to be “living martyrs” for the cause of Christ. We should be alive unto Christ, while at the same time being dead to ourselves. It is far easier to die a martyr’s death, then it is to daily die to ourselves while we still are living! This is what it truly means to be a follower of Christ.

Lord, too often I find myself too distracted by the things of this present world, because of my unwillingness to die to the things of this world. O God, help me to daily die to myself, so I can embrace the power of the resurrection life in Christ. Amen.