Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. 1John 2:15-17
This was a verse I memorized when I was a child. How do I know? I recite it in King James. You can see why my parents or youth leaders had me memorize it. The point that we learned as kids was that if you want to live forever in Heaven avoid all those worldly temptations that look like so much fun and everyone else is doing and compiling. Those things are a no-no to God. If you do those things or even want them, you don't love God. It made you feel as a kid that God didn't want you to have fun or as Eve felt when tempted, "God is withholding something from me. Maybe I should try it." Satan's temptation has from the start to get us to doubt that He really is a good good Father.
What we didn't learn was the meaning of lust. Tim Keller talks about this in a lot of messages and defines it as over or hyper desires. For example, God gave us our flesh. He gave us the pleasurable feelings of sex, and He encouraged us to experience it as much as we want when we are married with one person of the opposite count. Now people post their "body count" on social media and these people are "influencers". God gave us tastebuds and stomachs "growling" for a reason. He wants us to enjoy eating not just take a food pill or supplement to stay alive like The Jetsons or Snow Piercer. Why is every other video I see, one on losing weight? Because we have a hyper drive for food and it's killing us.
Our eyes see things that are beautiful. God made beauty - he could have made everything one color and uniform and drab but yet He wanted us to see beauty. Can we just experience it, enjoy it, take a mental picture of it, thank God for it or do we have an insatiable desire for it. It might be cars, boats, beautiful women, trucks, muscles and fitness to men that consumes their minds and we pursue those more than God. He has given us all these things to enjoy, not pursue. He wants us to pursue Him. He's more beautiful than all these things. What do women crave? I'm no expert but I would guess beautiful lips, eyelashes, bodies, men, houses, clothes - I don't know, ask Amazon. See beauty, enjoy it, take a snapshot of it, thank God for it and pursue the ultimate beauty in God.
Pride of life might be an over desire for recognition for all "you've" accomplished and how great you are. In our age it could be seen as a desire for likes on posts, followers, fame, popularity, power, status rather than just being comfortable in the fact that God thinks you are amazing. After all, any ability you have is given by God and there is no reason why we should see the need to get recognition for it. I have 4 kids and 11 grandchildren. That's a study of 15 kids I've seen growing up. One was swimming one day and a coach saw him and said he moves well in the water and coached him up to be an All-American two-time state champ. The other 14 don't have it. One hears songs in his dreams and writes them down and is learning keyboards on his own. None of the others even care. One can solve a Rubick's cube in a minute and one builds Lego cities with infinitesimal details. What I'm saying is, let's be proud of our abilities God's given us but let's not think over the top that everyone should see our abilities and laud us. Let our abilities point to God, not us.
God doesn't want us to miss out on everything in life - He gave those things. He just doesn't want them to point us inward to living for ourselves, which is the way we were born, in sin, but rather pointing us to the giver of good things and worshipping Him in gratitude thanking Him for all the good things we have to enjoy.
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