“In the world, but not of it”–this is a phrase commonly used to characterize the Christian’s relationship to the world. And yet many and varied are the opinions about what constitutes “worldliness.”

The common thread in avoiding “worldliness” is the desire to conform one’s life to the will of God and not to the dictates of the world.

Obviously this is a laudable goal but it is quite clear that there is an  incompatibility of love for the world and love for God.

The conception of worldliness goes far deeper than the idea of outlawing some behaviors that non-Christians tolerate. We are called to an active devotion to God that shapes all that we are and do.

 The world is not simply a passive entity, but a rival for the allegiance of every person. 

But what exactly is the world that the we are commanded not to love?

John 3:16 asserts that God “loved the world.”

Are God’s children to do less?

Often we  live as though we were of the world, but not in it. we have adopted the good things of culture and society, but refuse to involve ourselves  to create positive change.perhaps taking  credit for the good, but shifting the blame for the bad.

John does not mean that we  as believers in Christ  are to shun involvement in secular or political affairs, or that we are not to care about and for that which we call “the world.” What, then, does the command do not love the world really mean?

Those who are “the world” stand over against those who obey. What makes the world “worldly” is its persistent rejection of the claims of God in favor of its own values and desires.

When we use the passage  do not love the world  in essence it is a call to  people to make a choice for God’s way of doing things and not for the world’s ways.

But how does this square with the statement of John 3:16 that God loved the world?

In that well-known verse God’s love is demonstrated by the sending of the Son, an act intended to “save the world.”

God saves people who are bound by the world and its values by freeing them from their captivity. Quite simply, loving the world does not mean accepting it as it is, but remaking it into what it was created by God to be: people living in the realm of life and light.