The Word of life...,·the eternal Life…{toward} the Father, was made manifest... ·so YOU[i] too may have fellowship... with the Father and with his Son. ·...God is light and in him is no darkness at all. ·If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ...·But if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ...·I am writing…so that YOU may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we have an Advocate[ii] {toward} the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, ·[and he is the Atoning Sacrifice[ii]]for our sins. ...·Whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God {has been matured}. By this we may be sure that we are in him: ·whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked... ·[I write to YOU … because you know the Father..., to YOU, young people], because…the word of God abides in YOU, and YOU have overcome the evil one. (1 John 1:1-3,5-6,9; 2:1-2,5-6,14 ESV {S4A} [NRSV})

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. ·All that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and pride in [achievements and possessions]—is not from the Father but from the world. ·The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. ...·Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also… ·See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. ...·Do not be surprised ... that the world hates you. ·No one {who has been begotten out of} God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him. ...·He who was {begotten out of} God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. ·We know that …the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. (2:15-17,23; 3:1,13,9; 5:18-19 ESV {S4A} [NLT])

In this the love of God was made manifest among us: God sent his Son, {the only-begotten} into the world, that we might live through him. ·...He loved us and sent his Son to be the [Atoning Sacrifice[ii] ]for our sins. ...·We know we abide in him and he in us because he has given us of his Spirit. ...·So we have come to know and [rely on] the love that God has for us… Whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ·...{‘The One’} in YOU is greater than {the one} in the world. ...·This is [love for] God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not burdensome, ·for everyone {begotten out of} God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith ·...that Jesus is the Son of God. ...·And this is the confidence that we have toward him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. ·If we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him. (4:9-10,13,16,4; 5:3-5,14-15 ESV {S4A} [NIV])

All who have put their faith in Jesus have been restored to a relationship with God as their Father. The greatest danger to this fellowship does not lie in brief lapses to sin—since our Father forgives us when we confess our sins and turn back to walking in his light—but rather in the dark paths we choose if we do not do so. In this meditation we will look at the second of the four dark paths John mentions in his letter: compromise with ‘the world’.

What John calls ‘the world’ is not the world of God's creation in all its beauty and wonder, but rather the world that lies under ‘the power of the evil one’, who is ‘in the world’. And he seeks at every turn to use a variety of things in this enslaved and corrupted world to capture our attention and hold our love, sending us frequent and urgent messages through: our bodies, our eyes, and our social relationships. To grow to maturity in our Father's love, we need to overcome the evil one by standing up to the demands of ‘the world’ that assault us through these three God-given channels.

The ‘desires of the flesh’ refer to every message of the world that comes through your body—urging you to comfort it with something that contradicts God's created purpose for it. Thus our natural physical desires—like for food, liquid and sex—are turned into temptations to overeat, get drunk or ‘stoned’, and engage in various forms of sexual gratification outside of marriage. The ‘desires of the eyes’ refer to every message of the world that makes you believe you absolutely must have something your eyes see. Thus a simple appreciation of beauty and value may be perverted into all kinds of coveting—that is, desiring things and relationships we see but don’t have. Finally, the ‘pride in achievements and possessions’ refers to social comparisons, like: does another person have more or less than me, know more or less than me or have a higher or lower social position than me? We are thus tempted to look for things to independently ‘boast’ about, through the accumulation of wealth, knowledge or power, instead of finding security and significance in healthy relationships—especially with God (Jer.9:23-24).

John then identifies four things that can help strengthen us to stand up to these powerful forces that are operating in the nations and cities where we live. First, he emphasizes that ‘the One in YOU’—the Holy Spirit—is greater than the evil one who exercises such power in the world. Secondly, the world and its perverted desires won't rule us forever, while life toward the Father (by doing his will) is eternal. Further, the people around us who exert such pressures don't really know who we are; and when it suits them, they will rebuff (‘hate’) us, just like they did Jesus. Standing up to them and to the world’s desires, though, requires us to make daily choices.

Yet Christian maturity does not come through simply trying harder to do God's will, but through the third and most important thing John emphasizes. When we give in to the world and its desires, he says, there is no room in our hearts for the Father's love. Lately, I have discovered that the opposite is also true. So when I am tempted by one of the world's desires, I begin worshiping my Father for his love for me in Jesus. Then, with my heart full of his love, I restate my desires and needs as ‘requests’ to him—‘relying on’ him to understand my true desires and give me only what is good. When we make his kingdom and obeying his will our first priority, we may ask our Dad for anything, confident that he will hear us—and will answer us, even if there is a time delay (Med.#14 & #15).

Focusing on the eternal fellowship that we already enjoy and grow in here on earth, with our loving Father, will help us, John says, to avoid lapsing into sin. Yet even if we do sin, it is also the Father's love that helps us overcome the shame, guilt and fear of judgment so we confess our sin and return to walking in the light. For looking to Jesus as our Atoning Sacrifice and Savior, John says, should remind us of our Father's love. And looking to Jesus as our Advocate reminds us that our loving Father is for us, not against us (Med.#52). We can ‘live through him’ as adult sons and daughters ‘begotten from above...out of the Spirit’ (Med.#58). For the Spirit, first given to Jesus as the Firstborn on earth and ‘the only-begotten’ heir[iii], has now—since his ascension—been placed in our hearts (Med.#4), also as God's own DNA (‘seed’). Thus the Spirit brings the Father close to us so that we won't want to 'keep on sinning' (3:9 NIV), while also bringing Jesus close (Med.#51), so that he, ‘the One (first) begotten out of God’ can protect all those ‘begotten of out God’ from the evil one's attempts to keep them walking down one of his dark paths (5:18).

Finally, the fourth way that we grow strong against the evil one and the world's desires is through having God’s Word abiding in our hearts. As we read and meditate on the Scriptures, the Spirit reminds us of all that Jesus taught us (Med.#51); and we learn what is important to our Father in how he created us to live. Yet it is the Father's love, filling our hearts, that takes away any sense that obeying his commandments is ‘burdensome’ (5:3).

In Jesus' parable of the ‘soils’, he compares a farmers ‘seed’ to the Word of God (Lk.8:5-15), and he identifies two kinds of Christians who receive it, yet are unable to grow to maturity because their hearts are crowded with ‘rocks’ and ‘weeds’. The one kind of Christian only follows him if he makes their lives successful and trouble- free, but these rock-like expectations leave no room for the Word as a whole to take root in their lives. In the heart of the other kind of Christian, the ‘riches, pleasures and cares’ of this world ‘choke out’ the loving words coming from the Father that might have borne good fruit in their lives. Or as John says: either the love of the world will ‘choke’ out the Father's love in our hearts, or his love will empower us to mature in his love and overcome the evil one and the love of the world. For: it is our loves, deeply rooted in the Father's love (Med.#37) and in his Word, not primarily our beliefs drawn from God's word that will identify us as true disciples of Jesus in this world (Jn.13:35).

Are you abiding in your Father's love today by living through Jesus? Are you strengthening yourself in his authority as your Advocate—by spending time listening to and obeying his Word, and by heeding the voice of the Holy Spirit (your other Advocate)—so that you can overcome the evil one and the influences of this world?

[i] As in my own translations, I also render the 2^nd person pronoun here in caps (‘YOU’) if the Greek form is plural—to show when John is addressing members of the church as a group.

[ii] Though the NRSV does not capitalize ‘Advocate’ in this text, it does do so with the same Greek word [parakleetos] in Jn.14:16 to describe the role that both Jesus and the Holy Spirit play in our lives (Med.#51). So I choose to capitalize it here as well. And I do the same with ‘Atoning Sacrifice’—to show the equally great significance of both roles that Jesus plays in our lives.  

[iii] In Matthew 1, the word 'begat' [Gr. gennao] refers to the child by birth that became the 'heir'. Jesus, on receiving the Holy Spirit (Lk.3:22, Med.#26), became the sole human ‘heir’ of God (Heb.1:2,6; Med.#7). As ‘the One begotten [Gr. ho genneetheis] out of God, he baptizes us in the Spirit as also ‘begotten [Gr. ge-gennemenos] out of God’ (1 Jn.5:18; Jn.1:12,18,33-34; 3:5-8,35, Med.#58), making us his ‘co-heirs’ (Rom.8:15-17, Med.#5).

[iv] Members can access the sheet music to this song at this link.