"Love Not the World?" by Susan Hilario

Nothing like a pandemic to let you find out just how much you love “the world.” I would have said that I didn’t. One might think that a longtime Christian missionary should have mastered that by now, but as the State of Calamity has dragged on in Guatemala with its curfew and other restrictions, I have found myself wanting things to go back to the way they were. I want to be free to not wear a face mask, to meet someone for coffee in a bustling restaurant, to gather with others for worship or meetings at church and greet them in person rather than on a screen, to sing in a choir, to travel out of the country and know that I could return. (Our son just got married in Boston. We watched it on Zoom.) So, one day at the height of the lockdown, this verse in I John brought me up short: “Do not love the world, or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him (I Jn. 2:15).”

The activities I mention are not what one would normally consider worldly. They don’t really fit into John’s definition of “the world” in verse 16: “…the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does…” There’s nothing inherently wrong with restaurants, church meetings, and travel, but do I think more about resuming these and other activities than I do about being with the Lord himself forever? Which do I desire most? Another scripture comes to mind, and with it a song I learned while at missionary jungle training camp in Chiapas, Mexico. It is taken from John 21:15 where Jesus asks Peter, “…lovest thou me more than these?” (KJV) There is debate about what he meant by “these,” but for the present topic it would be helpful to take the verse to mean, “Do you love me more than you love all these things and people and activities and generally, life in this world?” As the song says, “The master still asks this question, ‘Lovest thou me, lovest thou me more than these?’”
 
The familiar is more comfortable than the unfamiliar, at least for some of us. While we can read and sing, expectantly and fully believing, about the wonders of heaven and being face to face with the Lord, we’ve never been there, never seen him. Sometimes, during worship, fellowship, or private devotion, we may have caught a glimpse of what heaven would be like, when it actually feels like this world fades away and seems unimportant, when we truly desire that world more than this one. Perhaps we should be encouraged to seek such times more often, set aside times to think about the Lord’s love for us, and our love for him. Jesus said that the first and greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (Mt. 22:37,38)”. Surely the more that we love him, the more we will want to be with him, and the less we will “love the world.”
 
(Unless otherwise noted, all Bible references are from the NIV.)