Is Love Is Love Scriptural?

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. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. I John 2:15

We are all Loved by God

Before I begin this musing, I want to say that God loves everyone. He loved us so much that He sent us Jesus, who never sinned to live a life that we could emulate with the help of the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. He became each and every part of our sin and bore it in our place. He went to hell in our place and rose from the dead to sit at the right hand of the Father. While we will never be sinless on this side of Heaven, we must look to His Word daily to cause us to walk ever closer to Him. When we grow closer to Him, our natural desire to give in to our lusts, our vices will fall away. That temptation will never go away while we live, but we have a way of escape through dwelling in God’s Word. You are loved. 

Is Love is Love Scriptural?

We’ve often heard the phrase, “Love is Love” particularly during Pride month. If you are familiar with the scriptures, Jesus’ greatest commands were to Love Your Neighbor and Love the Lord God with All of your heart, mind, soul and strength. If that was Jesus’ greatest commandment, why did John expound on the idea of not loving the world? Let us take a few minutes and see through God’s Word.

• Our nature compels us to love the world. Sin started in the Garden of Eden. When the serpent tempted Eve with the fruit, Satan started with lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. I John 2:16. Eve saw that the fruit was good for food, it was delightful to her eyes and it would make her wise. Loving the world will lead us down the exact same path. Even though Eve saw that those lustful desires were good, they separated creation from God. In the end, it leads to us gratifying the flesh and stifling the spirit.

• Loving the beauty of creation or loving a person is different than loving our worldly desires that were listed above. After all, John 3:16 tells us that God so loved and cherished the world (humanity) that He gave His only begotten Son so that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

Love can be sinful is not something we often hear in the church

• Love can become sinful when it is directed at the world. What is the world? The system that is Satanic. Our culture needs to hear this concept. We’ve heard over and over, God is Love! Yes, absolutely He is, but when the rubber meets the road we should ask, what can make love sinful? Loving the lusts and desires of the world that is under the control of the adversary. It is Spiritual and at war with God’s kingdom. In James chapter 4 he tells us that we battle the desires that war within us and if we let the desires of the flesh win we are enemies of God. Anyone who becomes a friend of the world is an enemy of God. Those are harsh but necessary words. 
• We must submit our desires to God. Our flesh with all of its needs and wants needs to be brought into account with God’s Word. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. How do we resist? By dwelling in God and His Word. 

Loving the world and our flesh leads in a dangerous direction

• The love of the world affirms our fleshly desires, the love of God and His Word brings our desires into alignment with God’s desires for us. Again, we will never be free of the temptation of self while we are on this side of Heaven. It seems we often hear the words, “I identify as” and “I affirm your identity.” Dear readers, our identity is not in ourselves, it is to be in Jesus Christ. Galatians 2:20 gives us a powerful statement concerning our identity. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We must let go of self and draw near to Jesus. If I dwell in myself, the truth of God won’t set me free. If I look inward to my heart, it will deceive me, If I look to what I think is right, in the end it will lead to death. 

The scripture is salt and life to us

I know this text is hard to understand when the Scripture overwhelmingly tells us to love and to love a lot. We are to be known by our love. But dear readers, I fear that this command has been taken so far in church circles that it is a blanket excuse for never growing in God’s love (for believers), that leads to a life lived in emulation, adoration and consideration of Jesus Christ’s life. Love can be sinful and the church needs to hear that. It’s uncomfortable, but to love God and to follow Him means that you are working out your salvation with fear and trembling. What does that mean? To walk in His Word daily (studying, meditating, praying) and living a life actively walking away from the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. To pursue holiness. Should we walk in fear? No. God has not given us a Spirit of fear but of power, love and a sound mind. 

The world will not give us a sound mind

Look at the world around us, is there anything that compels us to have a sound mind at the moment? Not really. We must cleave to God’s pure love that tells us when we are dwelling in sin. God wants us to get to know Him, His desire is for us to love with His love which calls us to walk a holy walk with him. After all, in the words of Augustine, “God never alters the robe of righteousness to fit the man, rather he alters the man to fit the robe.” You are loved deeply, so much that God wants to change you from the inside out into fellowship with Him.

All are indeed welcome, in that welcoming we must remember, “The word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12