What’s Wrong With Loving the World?

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. 1 John 2:15 (ESV)

What does it mean to love the world?

John is not saying that we should avoid hanging out with nonbelievers. After all, everybody has family members and friends that haven’t accepted Christ yet. He’s also not saying we should ditch kayaking, movie-making or roasting marshmallows over a bonfire.

The love of the world means placing a higher value on our achievements, possessions and physical pleasures over God. It is putting yourself and your pleasures first.

First John 2:15-16 in the Message translation explains it this way: “Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him.”

One of the biggest struggles for these people is wanting God to love them the way they are—which of course He does—while also maintaining their position as the god of their lives. They want to live the way they please, regardless of what God says. God’s Word counters the world’s self-focused ideology by saying, “Stop believing in yourself as god. Come to know Jesus as the real God of your life.”

How do we keep our priorities straight? Matthew 6:33 (NLT) says to keep your focus on God first and "he will give you everything you need." You'll discover that the more you focus on God's love for you and on building your relationship with Him, the emptier and less valuable the things of this world will become in comparison.