Deep down within our heart, there is this rebuke to “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” (1 John 2:15 ESV). These kinds of ideas seem to suggest that Christians have nothing to do with the world. They should rather retreat into their shell and look forward to someday getting airlifted into heaven. However, this paints a very incomplete picture. We know this because this idea is in direct contradiction with other portions of scripture. Our mission is not to love the world and blend in, rather, we are supposed to love the world so much that we save it.
Watching your world and taking responsibility for moulding it and steering it towards a better future is not worldliness. It is advancing the very same mission of Jesus. Jesus famously said: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17 ESV) The word translated save here can also be understood to mean deliver the world or heal the system of the world. The charge to “love not the world” seems to be the very opposite end of the popular John 3:16 that starts with the famous words: “For God so loved the world…”. It is confusing to be on a mission to save a world you are supposed to have nothing to do with.
It is quite important to understand this perspective that Christians possess the grace to change the world. Therefore, you should take responsibility and team up with others with an aim to save the world, deliver it and correct whatever has gone wrong with the world. Whenever the world goes astray, it is up to the watchman to rise to the occasion. You have to love the world in order to be concerned about it, however your loving and likeness should not be materialistic. The mission is to steer the world towards where God wants it to go.
