"Because everything which [is] in the world, the desire of the flesh and the desire of the eyes and the boasting of life, it is not out of the Father but rather out of the world it is."
-In the world vs. out of this world (i.e. out of the Father). Yes, He made everything. Everything which has come into being, He made it. AND He made desire, the ability to enjoy these things. He created us in His image, and gave us desires and the capacity for pleasure and joy - just like Him. So at the outset, we need to establish that there is nothing in fact wrong or bad about desires or wants. Those are God-given. And Scripture affirms that God has given us all good things to enjoy (1Tim 6.17). He gives us so many different things which He designed for pleasure and enjoyment, things we (are to) receive with gratitude. The existence of these things (everything!) and our enjoyment and use of them is not the problem. It is their abuse where we get into trouble.
-God is ultimate. These things He made, these desires He gave us - they are not ultimate. We are not ultimate. He is. And John is saying that this is precisely where we go wrong in our hearts. We put these things in His place. We put our desires before His. We put what we want before what He wants. The word translated here as ‘lust’ is the Greek word for desire - and again, there is nothing inherently wrong with desire. Desires are God-given, by the very One Who made them and has His own desires! It is the object of the desire which makes all the difference. The desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes - this is when we get to desiring other things more than the Lord. And it’s easy to do, right? Desires of the flesh - these are things which we can touch and feel and taste and smell. Desires of the eyes - these are things we can see. They quite possibly are things we don’t have (yet), and it could be that very non-possession which is energizing our desires for them. We can tend to want what we don’t (or can’t) have. It is the desire for more, more of the same, more of that thing which is giving us this great feeling in our flesh, in the here and now. It makes us feel better about ourselves, or maybe simply makes us feel better. It feels good. And if it feels good, it can’t be wrong, right? So what happens is that the question of what God wants is relegated to 2nd place. Or 3rd. Or an afterthought, if it exists at all. "What do You want, Lord?", is scarcely a thought in our hearts. The other part of this equation, John calls the boastful pride of life. It is that very prioritization of the here and now. What matters most is the here and now. What I want, right now. My present needs and wants. And maybe those of those who matter most to me, because again, what matters most is me. We may not quite verbalize it like this, but we live like this. Living for and prioritizng me-myself-and-I, the threefold self, what I want, pursuing that which is pleasing to me rather than trying to be pleasing to God. This is the default position of man. Every man woman and child. we emerge from the womb wired for self. ‘"Mine!" "No!" "I want!" These instincts are neither caught nor taught, they are native to our hearts. And this is how the world lives apart from the love of the Father. Apart from His love, we live apart from His love, loving neither Him nor our neighbor, and ultimately in putting ourselves first we do not love ourselves very well either. This then is how we can tell those in whom the love of the Father is not. They are living for self, living for the here and now, they put themselves first, what they want first, what they don’t have first, the here-and-now first. And God is second, second-best at best. And what they, what we all ultimately need is to get out of the way, out of ourselves, and out of this (enslavement to the things of the) world. There is nothing in this world which will ultimately satisfy the desires of our heart. What we need is out of this world...
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