Bible Verse of the Day Monday August 16th 2021

1 John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life —comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

Every believer and follower of Christ Jesus is put through specific tests every day, and one of them is the test of love. When we profess to have Christ Jesus in our lives, we are saying that we have a proven love for Jesus and His Holy Word, the Bible. Additionally, we say we have a relationship with Jesus, we love God, love others, and have a heart for those lost. Moreover, we also acknowledge that there is an absence of love for this world and its ways. In addition, we will also have a lack of love for the things of this world. We must understand that the world and Satan are entirely opposed to God, so we cannot love both. We must make a choice; there cannot be a longing, yearning, and love for the things of this world, and also claim a love for the things of God. Because what we love is where we place our loyalty and what our hearts desire. When we love this world and its evil ways, we are putting ourselves in a position against God. To love the world and its methods, we have to say that we hate God. You cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24).

Satan’s object is to keep us in the dark, so to speak; he does not want us to know that everything that he has to offer us is an allusion because everything that comes from him is a lie (John 8:44). This world and everything in it is only temporary; it will end (2 Peter 3:10; Isaiah 24).  And while the world's values, beliefs, principles, styles, and material possessions may seem attractive now, they are a deception that hides the evil that lurks beneath the surface. Consequently, they are in direct opposition to Christ Jesus our Lord. We must never lose sight of the fact that the ways of this world, the social movements, and attitudes have one source of influence, Satan. And that is the one whom the Apostle Paul calls" the ruler of the kingdom of the air," who is Satan (Ephesians 2:2). 

We must never forget and never disregard the fact that until we see our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus face to face, we will always have three main adversaries in this life, in this world. They are our sinful nature, a fallen world, which is at enmity with God, and Satan and those demons who followed him in his rebellion against God. Satan and all of his evil spiritual followers know what their end will be; they know where they are going to spend eternity, in the "lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophets are." They will live in torment day and night forever and ever (Ephesians 2:2). Therefore, their only goal is to take as many people as they can with them to Hell forever.

The bottom line of this verse is that love for the things of the world is a fool's errand because the things of this world are temporary, as is the world that we know today. If we allow ourselves to trust in the things of this world, we cannot enjoy the things of God. The true treasures of God will become out of our reach. Any saved believer in Christ Jesus who loves the world and its treasures more than God will spend their journey in the third class section instead of first-class, where God intends us to travel. There is an inevitable irrelevance to this world's temporal, fleeting things while eternal matters hold a permanent relevance (Matthew 24:35).