Scripture Notes: Do Not Love the World (1 John 2)

In his first letter, St. John warns us, “Do not love the world or the things in the world” (1 John 2:15). We all know how easy it is to put the things of the world before God, to give them our first and foremost attention and slide God back into a secondary position. Some of these things are even good, for God created the world, and it is good. But we must not allow creatures to take the place of the Creator. 

John goes on to remind us, though, that we live in a fallen world. The sin of our first parents shifted things and threw them out of alignment and out of harmony with the Creator. So the world has become a temptation, often a snare, something negative that can draw us away from God. John tells us, in fact, that this fallen world offers us “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16). 

We have all experienced the lust of the flesh. This includes sexual desires but also other sensory temptations, seeing and hearing things we should not, speaking things we should not, eating and drinking too much. When we give in to these temptations, we put our senses and their demands before God. We allow our bodies and their lusts to take control.

The lust of the eyes also involves desires, this time disproportionate desires for the things of the world. These might include money or possessions, honor or fame, even certain kinds of knowledge (especially knowledge of things that are harmful to us or lead us down wrong paths). Again, when we give into these desires, we put them ahead of God. We make them the guiding principles of our lives when God must always have that privilege.

Finally, the pride of life...how prone human beings are to pride! We want to promote ourselves, stand out from the crowd, be the best. There is nothing wrong with growing in virtue or doing something well and being pleased with that. But we often tend to think more highly of ourselves than we truly deserve. We often lack humility. This is not to say that we should be down on ourselves, for that is actually a false humility. But we need to be realistic and recognize that we are not the center of the universe and that, in fact, everything we have and are comes from God.

So as we approach Lent, perhaps we might keep in mind John’s warning, “Do not love the world or the things in the world,” and be especially mindful of how we give in to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.