Day 328: 1 John 2:15–17

Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him (v. 15).

I stumbled upon a quote that I can’t shake out of my head. “Saints . . . die to the world only to rise to a more intense life.”71 I’ve turned the quote over in my mind a hundred times, and I’m convinced it’s true. John may be the perfect example. I believe God had something so divinely unique to entrust to this chosen apostle that He had to slay the call of the world in him. Mind you, not the call to the world but the call of the world.

I don’t think John was so unlike Abraham or Moses. God chose these men but refined them for their tasks through the crucible of time and challenged trust. The obvious difference is that God used John mightily soon after his calling, but I’d like to suggest that his latter works fall into the category we’ll call “greater works than these.” As God sought to kill the world in His chosen vessels and crucify them to their own plans and agendas, their terms in waiting were not emptied and lifeless. Rather, their lives greatly intensified.

Our callings are not so different. We will never be of great use to God if we do not allow Him to crucify us to ourselves and the call of the world.

Our consolations, however, are exceedingly great! We trade the pitifully small and potentially disastrous for the wildest ride mortal creatures could ever know. We don’t just die to self to accept nothingness. We lay down our lives and the call of the world to receive something far more intense. The call of God! The time spent awaiting further enlightenment and fuller harvest are meant to bulge with relationship.

Months then years then even decades may have blown off the calendar of John’s life in biblical obscurity, but don’t consider for an instant that they were spent in inactivity or emptiness. No possible way! Please do not miss the following point: During the interim years of biblical obscurity in John’s life, one of the most intense relationships in the entire Word of God developed. Yes, Christ used John to cast out demons, heal the sick, and spread the good news through word of mouth. But somewhere along the way God built a man to whom He could entrust some of the most profound words ever recorded on parchment—all by a man once simply known as the “brother of James.”