The overcoming power of the love of God

1 John 2:15 Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. This verse begins a section of John’s letter that might look like a digression, but I suggest it is the natural progression of his encouragement to the young men, those who are working out their faith with fear and trembling against the evil one in this world. He admonished them not to love the world or the things in the world. One who loves the world doesn’t know the love of the Father by experience. Jesus told his disciples that they would overcome the world, and the evil one, the god of this world, because He had overcome them. The last words they heard Jesus say to them as a group before being arrested were these: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). How did He overcome the world? When Jesus said, “the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30), He was testifying to the fullness of the love of God within Him. There was nothing in the world which Satan could offer Him to distract or draw Him off of doing God’s will, namely, revealing the ultimate expression of the love of God to the world. So today we are encouraged by John’s insight from the life of Jesus. If you have the love of the Father in you, you overcome the world. One thing living to love with Jesus means is this: those who live to love with Jesus don’t love the world or the things in the world. The world has no life in it. It has nothing to offer us that can satisfy the deepest desires of our souls and bring us ultimate, long-lasting happiness. The love of the Father revealed in Jesus Christ satisfies the deepest needs and desires of our hearts. When John wrote that Jesus is eternal life, he was declaring Jesus to be the lone source of life in this world—the only source of satisfaction. If Jesus lives in us, then we have the same fullness that He did, and that fullness of life came from the love of His Father. The children, young men, and fathers, regardless of their stage of spiritual development, all have the love of the Father in them. This is true of all who are His. We have the love of God in us, which overcomes everything the evil one and the world has to throw at us. This encourages us to glorify God by being most satisfied in the love of God revealed in Christ. By so doing, we are free to live to love with Jesus out of the fullness of the love of God.