A secret to overcoming private temptations

It's not about more discipline but more love.

Over 40 years ago when I was a new Christian in the Jesus Movement of the early 1970’s in the USA I memorized 1 John 2:15-16. I used the Navigators “Topical Memory System” in the RSV because there was no NIV yet. The RSV says that if you "love the world or the things of the world: the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life, then love for the Father is not you." Ouch. So every time I had a lustful or angry thought, or even a hungering desire, it meant that I wasn’t really a good Christian. My hormones did not sync with the "truth" in my head. I lived with continuous self-condemnation, making me feel wormish, and syncing instead with the doctrine of total depravity.

I took the challenge of this verse to not love the world, to hate the values and temptations of the world, and to love God more. I separated myself from my old high high school friends and sought Christian friends, but the battle raged nevertheless. Deep inside I felt a failure. I just could not overcome the “lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life” (vs. 16).

In 2012 God led Debbie and me on a journey to come to know Him as “Father,” to experience His love in our hearts as something as real and tangible as the very air we breathe. Love that is experienced in the heart, as powerful as a “romantic crush” but which does not fade or dissipate over time. Actually, it has grown and deepened now 3 years later.

So today, when I look at this verse in 1 John 2:15-16 I experience it quite differently. Rather than feeling condemned for my lusts and I “just try harder” to not sin, I ask, “Father, why am I struggling with this right now? Why am I angry? Why do I feel so… (you fill in the blank).

Looking at the Greek New Testament I also see what is probably a translation choice of the RSV based on those scholars' personal understanding of how to deal with lust. They said if you are lusting after the world then love for the Father (God) is not in you. No. It should translate “Do not love the world nor what (is) of the world. If anyone loves the world, then the love of the Father (Father’s love) is not in him (or her).” See the difference? It isn't about our love for the Father it's about His love for us, Father's love being in us. 

If we think that because we struggle with sin then it is because “love for the Father is not in us” we will condemn ourselves “Oh, I am such a sinner, I do not love God as I should.” NO. That’s not what it says. The opposite is true. We struggle with sin because we are not experiencing/living with Father’s love working in our hearts. Something is missing and that is why we are struggling with the temptation. When we are not presently experiencing Him loving us then our hearts will long for other love, even sinful love.

Over and over, all through the Old and New Testaments we see the command to love God and love our neighbors. When we actively do this, the Bible says, God’s love will be in us. And as God’s love is in us, the Bible says, we will do this. It is reciprocal. It is “perichoresis” i.e. interpenetration. As Father’s love penetrates into our hearts, we enter or "penetrate" into His love.  Only then does love for the world begin to fall off. All the false loves of fleeting, sinful pleasures loose their grip. The temptations even begin to smell bad.

So the secret to overcoming private temptations, the private battles of lust, with evil* and pride IS NOT just disciplining ourselves and trying harder the next time. The key is to ask Father God to pour His love into your heart. Just like for the young man in vs. 14 who has God’s Word living in his heart, victory comes as we experience the reality of Father’s love penetrating our hearts, comforting us, and dispelling the love for the world with all its addicting, corrupting enticements. 

This is a lot of fun. Living IN Love is living in life.

*greek word for evil is porneia- vs. 14, or "porn"