A GROUP OF FIRST GRADERS had just completed their tour of a hospital. One of the children asked, “How come the people here are always washing their hands?” The nurse laughed and said, “For two reasons: they love health and they hate germs.”1 In more than one area of life love and hate go together. There is a right kind of love for Christians to have and a wrong kind of love—a love that God hates.
What exactly does John mean when he says, “Stop loving the world” (literal translation).2 Does that mean I can’t enjoy ice cream or popcorn? How about an afternoon at the ballpark? Should I prepare to move into a monastery or nunnery? Before you don your robe and head off to seclusion, hold on a minute. Charles Simeon wisely reminds us that in examining this passage, we need to be discriminatory and proceed with caution. On the one hand, we need to be careful we don’t interpret John’s prohibition more strictly than God intended; on the other hand we should not give it such a latitude that would in essence dilute its force. “A man who lives in monastic seclusion will be ready to say, that this passage forbids all intercourse with the world: whilst a person living in an unrestrained commerce with the world, will see in it nothing that condemns the most unrestrained compliance with the maxims and habits of the world, provided they be not palpably and grossly immoral.”3
Do Not Love the World (v. 15a)
There are two key words in this passage: “love” and “world.” Both of these words must be unpacked as to their meaning to understand John’s point. “World” (kosmos) is used in three primary ways in the New Testament.4 It is sometimes used to refer to Planet Earth. We sometimes talk about “the world” when we mean the earth. That is not the meaning here. It is often used to refer to people, as in John 3:16: “for God so loved the world.” That is not the meaning here either. Sometimes the word “world” is used to refer to the organized evil system with its principles and its practices, all under the authority of Satan, which includes all teachings, ideas, culture, attitudes, activities, etc., that are opposed to God. A fixation on the material over the spiritual, promotion of self over others, pleasure over principle—these are just a few descriptors of the world system John is talking about. The word “world” here means everything that opposes Christ and his work on earth. Jesus called Satan “the ruler of this world” (John 14:30; 16:11), and Paul called him “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4). In Luke 16:8 Jesus referred to all unsaved people as “the sons of this world.”
In 1961 ABC’s Wide World of Sports aired for the first time and ran on television for the next thirty-seven years, the longest-running sports show ever. ABC continues to air sports events under this banner. The world of sports today is a multibillion dollar industry with teams, owners, players, coaches, games, rules, events, fans, stadiums, equipment, schedules, merchandise, memorabilia, and a host of other commodities. It is a huge conglomerate, a worldwide enterprise. Think about the world of fashion today. Designers, clothing, cosmetics, wholesale and retail outlets, advertising, thin but buxom models sporting wings and wearing Victoria’s Secret underwear all contribute to the billion-dollar world of fashion. The world of sports and fashion are a small microcosm of the kind of thing John means when he talks about the world system that characterizes all cultures and includes everything that stands apart from God.
Let’s also unpack that word “love.” We use the word love in so many different contexts in the English language. We love pizza. We love football. We love our job. We love our spouse. We love fishing, hunting, food, art, or in my neck of the woods the Mavericks, the Rangers, and sometimes the Cowboys. With all this variety, what exactly does love mean? In its essence love is two things: a desire for something and a commitment to something. If you love pizza, you desire it. I love Schlotszky’s sandwiches. Sometimes I just get a craving for one. I will sometimes drive out of my way just to get a Schlotszky’s sandwich. If you don’t like Schlotszky’s, you may think that’s nuts! But then you would drive out of your way for whatever you were craving, right? Whatever it is you desire and whatever you’re committed to, that’s where your time and resources will go. If you love football, that’s where your time and resources will go. If you love hunting or fishing, that’s where your time and resources will go. If you love your spouse, you desire to spend time with her and you are committed to her. Love is more than an emotional feeling. Love requires a commitment of time and resources. If you love the world’s system that John is talking about, that’s where your time and resources will go.
The word John uses is the verb form of agapē, and it is a word that the Christians took from common Greek vocabulary and invested with new meaning.5
John hits his readers right between the eyes in verse 15 with a knockout punch. It is significant that the exhortation to stop loving the world is the first overt imperative in the letter. John assumes that to some extent some of his readers were guilty of loving the world system. John also exhorts Christians not to love “the things in the world.” Some Christians had become too cozy with the world system. They had begun to compromise with the world. They were giving too much ground to the world’s way of thinking and acting. Things in the world began to look more and more glamorous. Some Christians had taken their eyes off Jesus and put them on the things of the world. In the next verse John will further explain just what kind of things he has in mind. At this point he tells us we should not love the world system, nor should we love anything associated with the world system. Doesn’t Scripture teach that friendship with the world is hatred toward God (James 4:4)? Loving the world is the sin of allowing your appetites, ambitions, and conduct to be fashioned according to earthly values. “Lord, let me not think that the world is a place! That would lead me to underrate my difficulties. If the world were any particular place, I could easily get rid of it. The world is within me. I can carry it about to any place, and the place to which I carry it immediately becomes worldly.”6
What are the telltale signs of loving the world? First, when the world, or any object in it, so engrosses our thoughts to such a degree that it excludes serious reflection on the things of God, we are guilty of loving the world. When the world is our constant associate, the last companion of our thoughts at night and the first when we awaken in the morning, we are loving the world. Second, when the things of the world engross most or all of our conversation, we are loving the world. Third, if we are unwilling to part with it when need be, or to give it or anything in it up to God’s purposes, we are loving the world. Fourth, discontentment with our portion of the world’s goods proclaims a criminal love for it. If we secretly grieve because we are not blessed with every earthly convenience or delight that others possess, we are loving the world. If we are not entirely willing that God should govern his own world and distribute his own gifts as he pleases and to whom he pleases, it proves that we pay homage to the world, which belongs only to God. Fifth, when we pursue it with greater zeal and enjoy it with higher relish than we do serving God and enjoying his favor, we are loving the world. Sixth, if we pride ourselves in earthly distinctions, if we expect great deference and resent the least contradiction or slight from others, we are loving the world. Seventh, when we seek to acquire or retain its objects in a wrong manner or by unwarrantable means, we are loving the world.7
If you are married, do you remember the day you proposed? You declared your love and asked her to be your wife. Suppose she responded like this: “Yes, I will marry you, live with you, work beside you, but you need to know from the outset that I love somebody else. You must allow me to continue my love for him.” You would be speechless! You would also be the world’s biggest moron if you married her! Imagine how Jesus feels when we say, “I will serve you, go to church, read the Bible, and pray daily. I will do my best, but you must remember, I love the world!” Ridiculous! You cannot be into the world’s system and be into God at the same time.
The Impossibility of Loving God and the World Simultaneously (vv. 15b, 16)
John provides two reasons for his command in the rest of the passage. The first is found in verses 15, 16: it is impossible to love God and the world at the same time. Love for the world is not compatible with love for God. “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Look at that phrase “the love of the Father.” What John means is our love for the Father.8 In verse 16 John explains why it is impossible to love God and the world system at the same time: everything in the world system is not from God; it does not have its source or origin in God. Because this is true, it is impossible for any Christian to love God and the world at the same time. That is John’s point. Remember what Jesus said: “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24). John may have been thinking about what Jesus said when he wrote this.
Some things are incompatible. Certain kinds of clothes are incompatible. I have a picture of myself when I preached back in 1978. I was wearing a pair of white patent shoes, a pair of brown and yellow checked pants, a dark brown shirt, a plaid jacket, and a tie with bright yellow on it, among other colors. I was twenty-one years old . . . and single. Some things just don’t go together; they are not compatible. You can’t take a shower and play baseball at the same time. You can’t whistle and keep your lips closed at the same time. These things are simply incompatible. You can’t love God and the world at the same time. As Augustine said, to love the world and not God would be like a maiden who loved the ring her lover had given her and cared nothing for him who gave it.9
It should be obvious to us just how inconsistent it would be to love God and the world at the same time. Human beings are simply not constituted in such a way as to love different, contrary entities supremely yet simultaneously. To obey one necessitates disobeying the other. Since we cannot love God when we love the world, we reveal ourselves to be idolaters. What is idolatry if it is not worshipping the creature and not the Creator? (Notice how John ends this letter with a reference to idolatry and a command to “keep yourselves from idols”!)
Verse 16 defines what the world system consists of with three parallel phrases: our fleshly desires, our desire for things we see, and the boastful pride of life. Let’s unpack each of those phrases. When John talks about “the desires of the flesh,”10 the word translated “desires” (niv, “lust”) means “inordinate desire.”11 In our vocabulary “lust” is usually taken in reference to sexual desire and not chocolate cake. Here it includes but is not limited to sexual lust. The etymology of the word in Greek is “to be hot after something.” In this context, lust is any sinful desire that is contrary to the will of God. It could be a woman, a car, a position, a dress, or any number of things. What does “flesh” mean in this statement? It is human nature corrupted by sin. Apart from the grace of God, the flesh offers a bridgehead to sin in our life. “Desires of the flesh” describes what it means to live life dominated by the senses. In the extreme, it would include “gluttonous in food, . . . slavish in pleasure, lustful and lax in morals, selfish in the use of possessions; regardless of all the spiritual values; extravagant in the gratification of material desires.”12 “The desires of the flesh” includes all desires centered in your nature without regard to the will of God. It is that which constantly fights against the things of God in your life. The lust of the flesh is contrary to the desire to do the will of God. In Galatians 5:19–24 we see probably the most familiar of all passages on the flesh versus the Spirit motif. Paul lists several examples of the deeds of the flesh followed by the familiar fruit of the Spirit. The contrast is stark!
Those who are “loving the world” and giving in to “the desires of the flesh” can expect to see these kinds of attitudes and actions characterizing their lives. On the other hand, those who are not loving the world system but rather are controlled by the Holy Spirit can expect to see the fruit of the Spirit in their lives. As difficult as it is, Paul instructs us in Romans 13:14 to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.” Calvin used this Pauline passage to define the lust of the flesh: “When worldly men, desiring to live softly and delicately, are intent only on their own convenience.”13 Calvin is spot-on here because much of our flesh craves its own convenience. As the great Puritan Richard Sibbes said, “This flesh of mine is ready to betray me into the hands of the world and of the devil, therefore there must be a marvelous strong guard. I must not suffer my affections to rove.”14
| Flesh | Spirit |
| sexual immorality | love |
| impurity | joy |
| sensuality | peace |
| idolatry | patience |
| sorcery | kindness |
| enmity | goodness |
| strife | faithfulness |
| jealousy | gentleness |
| fits of anger | self-control |
| rivalries | |
| dissensions | |
| divisions | |
| envy | |
| drunkenness | |
| orgies |
The second phrase, “the desires of the eyes,”15 means we desire what we see. In Scripture the eyes are the primary organ of perception and often the principal avenue of temptation. We see that in the case of David who saw Bathsheba, lusted after her, and later committed adultery with her. David should have read and practiced Job 31:1: “I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman” (niv). As in the former phrase “the desires of the flesh,” so here again sexual lust is only a fraction of the meaning of the phrase. In Matthew 6:22 Jesus asserts that “the eye is the lamp of the body,” adding, “If your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness” (v. 23). Your eyes are closely related to your heart! Proverbs 17:24 says, “The discerning sets his face toward wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth.” The psalmist says of the arrogant in Psalm 73:7, “Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.”
“The desires of the eyes” describes someone who is captivated by an outward show of materialism. See a new car, must have it. See a dress, must have it. See a position, must have it.
Cars, dresses, positions, etc., are not in and of themselves sinful. But the inordinate desire to have what we see is sinful. An inordinate desire to have anything contrary to God’s will is sinful.
Since nature itself is a part of the created world, it is possible to have a love for it rather than love for God. C. S. Lewis wisely warned us about trying to find a direct path through nature to an increasing knowledge of God. The path peters out almost at once. We can’t get through that way. We must make a detour from the hills and woods and go back to our Bible. Otherwise the love of nature will turn into some form of nature religion, which even if it does not lead to paganism leads to a great deal of nonsense. Nature “dies” on those who try to live for a love of nature.16
The third phrase, “pride of life,”17 describes the arrogant spirit of self-sufficiency. It expresses the desire for recognition, applause, status, and advantage in life. The phrase describes the pride in what life can offer you. The Greek word translated “pride” describes the pretentious braggart. This is the guy who has zero in his bank account but tells you he has all the money in the world. This is the man who always wants to “one up” you. This is the person who, when you tell him about a trip you took across the state line, will tell you about his trip to Europe. If your house has 1,900 square feet, his has 2,900. The root of this word in Greek means “a wandering about” and was the word used in the first century to describe “wandering quacks who could be found shouting their wares in every market-place and in every fair-ground, and offering to sell men their patent cure-alls.”18
Everything we desire to have, enjoy, or pride ourselves upon is the “pride of life.” Everything from sensualism and self-indulgence to self-conceit, the ungodly gratification of fleshly appetites, mental self-satisfaction, egotistic arrogance—this is the “pride of life.” All false views of pleasure, false views of possession, false views of superiority—this is the “pride of life.”19 Human egotism is like the mirror-lined walls in the old barber shops I went to when I was a kid. Sitting in the barber’s chair, you see yourself reflected a seemingly infinite number of times. This is the pride of life—a millionfold reflection of self—I, I, I everywhere.
There is an interesting correlation between these three broad categories and Eve’s temptation by Satan in the garden of Eden. Genesis 3:6 says: “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise . . .” Notice that the tree was “good for food” (lust of the flesh), “a delight to the eyes” (lust of the eyes), and “desired to make one wise” (pride of life). There is also something of a correlation between Matthew’s account of Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the wilderness for forty days and these three broad categories:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” (Matthew 4:1–10)
The first temptation is an appeal to the lust of the flesh. The second temptation roughly corresponds to the lust of the eyes. The third temptation appeals to the pride of life. Phillips Brooks said it well in the last sentence of his sermon on this phrase “pride of life” in 1 John 2:16: “Outside of His gospel and His service there is the pride of life, and the pride of life is death.”20
There is a time in your life, especially when you are younger, when the desires of the flesh exercise immense influence and subtle power over your imagination. They seem to promise illimitable delight and inexhaustible pleasure. Everywhere alluring forms appear enticing the flesh with potential intoxicating joys.21 Every Christian has three great enemies: the world, the flesh, and the devil. Their combined power is impossible to overcome in our own strength. Loving God first and foremost, staying daily in his Word, and walking daily in the Spirit is the only way to win the victory over these three enemies. To ignore these three great enemies is like ignoring gravity and slipperiness while scaling the icy slopes of the Swiss Alps. You would before long find yourself at the bottom of a precipice.22 Worldliness is what our culture does to make sin seem either less sinful or not sinful at all. Worldliness is what our culture does to make righteousness look odd, strange, or quirky.
It is evident from what John says in verse 16 that worldliness is more than a list of do’s and don’ts. “I don’t drink, I don’t cuss, I don’t chew, and I don’t go with girls who do!” Many Christians fall into the trap of negative holiness. They think if they just refrain from certain activities, places, etc., they will not be worldly. But there is a problem! Different individuals’ lists of do’s and don’ts differ! Apparently it is considered worldly in Finland to whistle!23 Certainly there are some activities, places, etc., from which we Christians should refrain. That is not in question. But loving the world is not merely a matter of keeping somebody’s rules. Loving the world begins in the heart before it is ever lived out in our lives.
John is teaching us that our relationship to this world system must be one of opposition. The world is ever opposed to the things of Christ. That means it will be opposed to you if you live for Christ! Our relationship to the world must be guided by Biblical principles that are inescapably unpopular with the world. The world ever loves its own and hates those who belong to Christ. This shouldn’t surprise us in the least. It is exactly what Jesus said would happen in his final words to the disciples before his crucifixion (John 15:18–25). D. L. Moody shook North America for God during the nineteenth century. He was known for his down-home style and simple theology. When a man approached him and said, “Mr. Moody, now that I am converted do I have to give up the world?” Moody responded, “No, sir, you don’t have to give up the world. If you give a good ringing testimony for the Son of God, the world will give you up pretty quick. They won’t want you.”24
The Impermanence of the World and the Permanence of Those Doing the Will of God (v. 17)
Verse 17 states the second reason why we are not to love the world system—it is impermanent: “And the world is passing away, along with its desires.” The world system has a built-in design flaw—it is temporary. It is already on the way out. “Desires” here is used metonymically for all things in the world system that can be desired.25 The tense and voice of this word in Greek is expressive of the fact that the world system is in the process right now of passing away in and of itself. One use of this word (paragetai) in the first century had to do with the theaters of the day. At the conclusion of a scene the curtain would come down, and the props would be picked up and moved offstage. In preparation for the next scene, new props would quickly be brought onstage. John’s point is that the world system opposed to God is like a scene in a play. When the scene comes to an end, the curtain falls and the props are removed. The focus is on impermanence. The world system is passing away. All its desires directed to, stimulated by, and fed or starved on the fleeting things of this outward life are passing away.26
What if an investor came to you and said, “Have I got a deal for you! If you make an investment I will guarantee you a return for the first two or three years, but after that, you will lose your shirt and go bankrupt.” No one in their right mind would invest in something that they knew would go belly-up. Loving the world is a bad investment. The world is passing away. Over everything in the world God has written, “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.”
When you think about it, what really lasts forever? The knowledge of today will be the ignorance of tomorrow. If Aristotle, Galileo, or Isaac Newton were alive today, they would have to go to school again. Once it took a century to thrust the most brilliant discoveries into the dust heap of historical oblivion; now a single decade or even a year will do it. The powerful nations of yesteryear are now nothing more than a historian’s or archaeologist’s interest. Nothing lasts. What you know, what you acquire, and what you achieve will never last. Only God, his kingdom, and those who are rightly related to him will never fade throughout eternity. The world is passing away, but he who does the will of God abides forever.
Charles Dutton, the character actor, spent seven years in prison for manslaughter as a young man. While there, he developed an interest in acting and participated in some plays. Upon his release, he got small parts on Broadway and hit it big in the Broadway production The Piano Player. His career broadened to television and movies, where he became an excellent character actor. After his Broadway success, he was asked in an interview, “How did you make the remarkable transition through those prison years to Broadway?” “Unlike the other prisoners,” he replied, “I never decorated my cell because I wanted to be reminded every day this place is temporary.” Dutton never regarded his cell as his permanent home. This world system is not our home.27 To love it is folly because it is passing away.
Be very careful about decorating your cell. One day God will ring the curtain down, the play will be over, and everything will be taken away. Imagine how foolish it would look for one of the actors in a play to chase the prop people as they remove “his” car, “his” furniture, “his” wardrobe, “his” bank account.” “Wait, that’s my car! Where are you going with my furniture? Hold it! That’s my money!” What a pitiful sight! The wise person is the one who does the will of God. He is the one who “abides forever.”28 His life is on eternal standard time.
I was the Monopoly champion of Jefferson Drive in Rome, Georgia. My friends and I would play Monopoly, and I would amass houses and hotels. (We altered the rules a bit. If you had the money to buy them, you could place two or three hotels on a single piece of property). I discovered that if you could buy all the yellow pieces of property (Marvin Gardens, Ventnor, etc.) and all the green ones (North Carolina, Pacific, etc.), you could win the game virtually every time. You don’t need to have Boardwalk and Park Place to win. After I won all of that money, hording a pile of $500 bills and more houses and hotels than you could shake a stick at, every single time the game ended, we folded up the board, took our houses, hotels, and money, and put them right back into the box. It was only a game. I really didn’t own houses or hotels but pieces of plastic and paper that were of no value. Even my temporary wealth was an illusion.
In his famous book Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan describes Christian’s visit to the town of Vanity Fair. In seventeenth-century England, much like today, towns and hamlets had fairs that people came from all over to attend. At the fair you could find all kinds of games and activities, as well as virtually any kind of merchandise for sale. Hawkers selling their wares constantly allured visitors. When Christian and Faithful were asked, “What will you buy?” Faithful responded, “We buy the truth, and we see none of it for sale here.” This infuriated the shopkeepers, and they stirred up the people against Christian and Faithful. A mock trial followed, and a guilty verdict was swiftly returned. Faithful was martyred, but Christian barely escaped through the town gate to resume his journey toward the city of God.29
Too many Christians today are enamored with the world of “Vanity Fair.” W. J. Dawson vividly describes the scene:
It was the Vanity Fair, where the pilgrims of eternity forgot their noblest purposes and were allured from their Divine quest. Its gaiety and glory, its glittering baubles and visions of beauty, bewitched the sense and made man forget the greatness of his origin and the greatness of his destiny; in its booths of pleasure and chambers of delight, its novelty and fascination, and airy laughter, men were allured to destruction and forgot that they were pilgrims and sojourners as all their fathers were. And what, after all, was the world but a mere series of shows and vanities, like a village fair, all alive at night with light and music, and in the morning nothing left but the trodden grass and a broken pole or two to mark where it had been. It was passing away like a stage picture upon which the curtain would soon fall.30
What are you loving today? To all of us who are Christians God says, don’t be in love with the world’s system. Rather we need to remain in love with Jesus. The world will never satisfy. In fact, the more you are gratified, the less you are satisfied. Loving the world ultimately leaves a bad taste in your mouth, like a cold french fry, a mouthful of stale popcorn, or a tepid Coke. In this life the objects of worldly desire are all in the process of perishing. Reason, experience, and revelation all converge in an irrefutable threefold witness that everything “under the sun,” as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes, is vanity of vanity.31
There are only two ways to rid the human heart of its love for the world, and one of them won’t work! You can demonstrate the world’s utter and complete vanity, such that a person will have no logical choice but to give up love for the world. But human nature being as depraved as it is, that simply won’t work. The other option is to set before the human heart God himself, who is so much more worthy of our love, so that our heart will resign, with the aid of regeneration and the daily help of the Holy Spirit, its old love affair with the world. Love may be thought of in two different conditions: 1) when its object remains unattained, it becomes a love of desire; or 2) when its object is possessed, it becomes a love of indulgence. The human heart will never relinquish its love affair with the world unless it finds something greater to love than the world. The only way to dispossess the heart of an old love is by the expulsive power of a new one.32
For those without a saving knowledge of Christ, their visit to Vanity Fair does not end with a cemetery plot. Hell awaits all who reject Christ, where not only do they perish eternally, but so too perishes the possibility of their desires ever being gratified. I wonder if in Hell people will still have their desires? Imagine, nothing to slake the thirsts of the body or the soul. No bank accounts or checkbooks for the materialist, no sexual fulfillment for the sensualist, no books or computers for the intellectual. The appetite remains, but the means of satisfying it are nonexistent.33 Add to all this eternal torment.
According to the Chicago Tribune, on March 3, 1995, a thirty-eight-year-old man who was walking to his temporary job at a warehouse in Rosemont, Illinois tried to get there by cutting across eight lanes of the Tri-State Tollway. After he crossed the four northbound lanes, however, the wind blew his hat off. The hat flew back across the northbound lanes, and he chased it. A tractor-trailer truck struck and killed him. A person can lose everything by chasing after nothing.34 A Christian stands to lose so much by chasing after the world.
“But whoever does the will of God abides forever,” John says. I would have expected John to say, “but God abides forever.” That is true, but it is not what he says! He says that people who do God’s will abide forever! Wow! If I have God’s eternal life in me via salvation from my sins through Jesus Christ, I am going to abide forever with God in Heaven! My life has meaning, value, and purpose through all eternity because I am connected with the God of all eternity! The world cannot give meaning, hope, or comfort. There is no worldly comfort in the long run. Only Heaven can give us heavenly comfort in the world in which we live.35
Heavenly Father, deliver me from ever loving this world or the things of this world, and keep my affections ever lashed to my Savior, who bled and died on the cross for my sins, that I might not perish with the world and its lusts.