When Do We Love the World Too Much
J. Jortin, D. D. 1 John 2:15-17 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.… 1. When, for the sake of any profit or pleasure, we wilfully and knowingly and deliberately transgress the commandments of God and become openly and habitually wicked and vicious, and live addicted to sensuality, to intemperance, to fraud, to extortion, to injustice. 2. When we take more pains to obtain and secure the conveniences of this life than to qualify ourselves for the rewards of the next. 3. When we cannot be contented, or patient and resigned, under low or inconvenient circumstances. 4. When we cannot part with anything that we possess to those who want it, who deserve it, and who have indeed a right to it. 5. When we envy those who are more fortunate and more favoured by the world than we are, and cannot behold their success without repining; when at the same time we can see others better and wiser and more religious, if they be in a lower state than ourselves, without the least uneasiness, without emulation and a desire to equal them. 6. When we esteem and favour persons purely according to their birth, fortunes, and success, measuring our judgment and approbation by their outward appearance and situation in life. 7. When we dislike and slight others only because the world favours them not, and thus suffer our affections, our judgment, and our behaviour to be regulated by the notions and customs of men, and indeed of the worst sort of men. 8. When worldly prosperity makes us proud and vain, and we expect to be greatly honoured by others, only because they are placed beneath us, though in other respects, in valuable qualities, they may surpass us; and when we resent any little failure of homage as a real injury. 9. When we omit no opportunity of enjoying the good things of this life, when our great business and serious employment is to amuse ourselves, till we contract an indifference for manly and rational occupations, deceiving ourselves, and fancying that we are in a safe condition, because we are not so bad as several whom we could name, nor guilty of such and such vices with which the world abounds. (J. Jortin, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. WEB: Don't love the world, neither the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love isn't in him.