Holiness is not simply about morality. Ultimately, holiness flows from our fellowship with God. So John addresses the believers as dear children whose sins are forgiven and who know God. The older believers he addresses as fathers who know the unchanging God. The younger believers he addresses as young men who overcome the evil one by the word of God living in them. Christianity is about a relationship with God worth fighting to enjoy.

A marriage involves genuinely loving someone and, therefore, not loving others in the same way. So John moves, in verses 15 to 17, to remind the believers that as lovers of God they must not love the world. As for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, the world around continues to entice us away from devotion to God. 

The lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes draw us with sensory overload. The pride of life swells the vanity within to pull us away from him. We cannot love the world and still love God.

Thank you, Lord, that your love for me is powerful and everlasting. Help me grow in the knowledge and experience of that love today.

The church is a community of all ages. This diversity is her strength, but also a challenge. In some parts of the world, respect for the elderly is declining and in others young people and children are treated as unimportant. John has a vision of church that embraces all age groups and levels of maturity – and so should we. His use of the term ‘children’ (v 12) is how he addressed all the believers, confirming our relationship with the Father. He wants us to know that God has lavished his love on us and called us his children.¹ It is because of this special relationship that we can address God as our ‘Abba, Father’,² a privilege shared by no one else. 

Children of God need to make a choice, however. Either we love the Father, or we love the ‘world’ (v 15). In using this word, John is not referring to the physical cosmos, which God has made, but rather the world of sin that stands in opposition to God. His three characteristics of this realm of sin describe similarities to the temptations of the first humans in the Garden of Eden. The original temptation was of something that ‘was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom’.³ This sounds very like the cravings we all feel at times and have to resist. John’s point is that all these worldly things are temporary. Whoever does God’s will, first and foremost, will live for ever. 

Love is still the key to overcoming the world, around us and within. The love of the Father relates not just to us loving him, but to his love for us. Living in this love, and daily choosing to grow in it, is the best defence against the desires of the flesh.

Think about how God’s amazing love has been expressed to you through the changing periods of your life and give thanks for it today.

¹ 1 John 3:1  ² Rom 8:15  ³ Gen 3:6