The great Scripture says, “The love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim. 6:10), and again, “Do you not know that loving the world is enmity with God?” (James 4:4). What do these verses mean? How can loving the world be opposed to God when God Himself created the world? And in the Book of Genesis, when God finished creating, does it not say, “He saw that everything was good”? How then can loving something good become something evil?
So what is this “love of the world” that Scripture condemns?
In my understanding, the best way to answer this question is to carefully examine what Scripture tells us about “the first people who sinned.” According to Genesis, when Adam and Eve began their life in God’s creation, everything was peaceful. God blessed them saying:
“Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it; rule over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and every living creature that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:28)
But “rule over” does not mean “crush them like straw” or “dominate them like tyrants.” It means: govern them with love, live together in harmony, care for creation as stewards.
When God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26), He was revealing how precious creation is to Him and how deeply He thinks about it. After creating humanity, God gave Adam authority over creation—but that authority belonged to God, not to Adam. In simple Amharic, God appointed Adam as His ambassador to manage creation on His behalf.
An ambassador’s work is to represent the king, to reflect the king’s honor. Adam’s task was exactly this: to show God’s nurturing love, His care, His protection, His motherly tenderness toward all creation. Scripture says:
“He placed him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and to keep it.” (Gen. 2:15)
An ambassador has no meaning without the king. The king is the center; the ambassador exists only to reflect him. Adam’s life was meant to be like a mirror—showing only the light of God.
But the devil’s temptation aimed to make humanity forget this purpose. Instead of representing the King, humanity chose to replace the King. Instead of reflecting God, Adam and Eve wanted to be seen as gods. They abandoned the center of life—God—and tried to make themselves the center.
This is the beginning of “loving the world.”
Humanity tried to fill the emptiness created by rejecting God with something else—something created. They tried to hide their spiritual nakedness “under a tree.” The tree itself was good; it was one of God’s beautiful creations. But when a creature tries to take the place of the Creator, even a good thing becomes a source of downfall.
A tree cannot give meaning to life. Only the Creator can. When we try to fill the God-shaped emptiness with created things—wealth, comfort, food, sex, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, and so on—we repeat the same ancient mistake. This is when “loving the world” becomes destructive.
The place of the Creator can never be filled by any creature. It remains open until He Himself fills it.
Adam and Eve felt that what God gave them was “not enough,” and they tried to possess the Giver Himself. (And in His mercy, knowing this, He came to them in flesh—and their child Judas sold Him for thirty pieces of silver.)
They desired to become the center of the universe instead of God. Genesis exposes this sickness clearly. When the serpent showed the fruit to Eve, Scripture says:
“The woman saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eyes and desirable for gaining wisdom.”
That is the moment of the fall.
In modern terms, our economics teachers say, “Human wants are unlimited.” But Scripture taught this truth long before economics existed.
One of the great truths of the Bible—perhaps the central human issue—is how humanity’s philosophy of life, driven by endless desire, leads from chaos to chaos.
Ethiopian elders say, “The world has nine holes—bottomless, never filled.” I believe they are describing the human condition: our endless desires, our bottomless cravings. You chase something thinking it will satisfy you; when you grasp it, you discover it is like water that never stays. Then you run toward another thing that seems more fulfilling, but when you reach it, again there is no rest. You spend your whole life running like this, and when you reach the closing chapter of your days, only the bitterness described by Schopenhauer remains:
“In early youth, as we contemplate our coming life, we are like children in a theatre before the curtain is raised… Could we foresee what is coming, children might seem like innocent prisoners, condemned not to death but to life… And if two men who were friends in youth meet again in old age, their chief feeling will be disappointment at life as a whole.” (Schopenhauer, Studies on Pessimism)
When the Gospel says, “The truth shall set you free” (John 8:32), and teaches, “If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord…” (Rom. 10:9), the truth it proclaims is precisely this: the word “Lord” does not mean a distant ruler. It means the head of the household, the center of the home, the one to whom everything in the house—great and small—belongs and obeys.
So if Jesus becomes your Lord, the first truth you learn is that you are not your own master, nor are others your masters. You, and all who dwell in this world, become arrows pointing toward the true center of life—Christ Himself. Therefore, the will you must fulfill is not your own, nor the will of others, but the will of the One who is the head of the household: Jesus.
And His will is simple: that we love Him, and that we look upon all creation through His eyes of love.
The will of our Father in heaven is that His heavenly order be lived on earth. This begins when we accept that God is the One “in whom we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28)—the foundation of our existence, the reason for our being, and the end toward which our life moves.
The Lord Jesus taught: “Not everyone who says to Me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of My Father.” The Father’s will is that we accept His divinity with all our heart, soul, and strength—something Adam refused—and that we live as His ambassadors, reflecting His light before all people.
When we believe that “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and make Him the foundation and center of our life—our Alpha and Omega—then we are freed from the idol called “Me.” This idol never satisfies, and it turns the whole world into a marketplace for our desires. But when Christ becomes our center, we are liberated from the exhausting race to control everything, possess everything, and bend everything to our will.
We begin to see everything for God, and through God.
The Lord Jesus said, “Whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.” (Luke 9:24) This means abandoning the idol we worship—our “Me”—the idol we serve unknowingly: the one we pamper for comfort, feed with desires, fight for, and defend as if it were a god.
When we abandon “Me,” and begin to see ourselves and all creation through God, we escape the endless cycle of domination—“owning,” “controlling,” “commanding,” “possessing.” We stop turning creation into tools for our pride. Instead, we recognize that all creatures exist to reveal the glory of God, not to inflate our ego.
Then we understand: Creation is not made for our appetite, but for God’s glory. And our responsibility as creatures is to live with love and joy among our fellow creatures, carrying the oil of the Holy Spirit and shining the light of Christ.
When you begin to live this way, long life or short life, sickness or health, wealth or poverty, honor or humiliation—none of these make a difference. In all things, you see God.
This is the Christian way of life: to live with God as the center. To live like Christ means this—just as Jesus lived only for the Father’s will, so must you.
If humanity lived this Christian way, all divisions created by pride and selfishness would disappear: nations and peoples, oppressor and oppressed, master and slave, Jew and Greek, male and female. The world would stop poisoning the water source to make a golden idol for a few. Humanity would stop cutting down the tree before its fruit ripens. The sword would become a plowshare. Cruelty would die. Kindness would triumph. Pride would bow to humility. We would all have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). O! How peaceful that heart is.
Enough! The human heart would finally rest. As St. Augustine said:
“Lord, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
This path is God’s path, not the world’s. That is why the world resists it: it exposes her error and reveals her emptiness. For the one who chooses this path, the throne the world offers is a cross. And this cross appears in many forms, according to each person’s life.
Therefore, anyone who desires to walk with God like Enoch must be ready: at every moment, the temptation offered to Eve—“be like God”—will present itself again, urging us to abandon God and enthrone “Me” at the center.
This is why, when you try to make God the center of your life, you will see how the world attempts to lure you away. It will list the “benefits” of freeing yourself from God’s authority. It will whisper that God is preventing you from becoming your own god—preventing your happiness, your success, your joy. It will advertise a life where God is absent and you are enthroned, showing you honor and comfort and saying:
“If you bow down to me, I will give you all of this.”
And when you resist this temptation, the world will tell you that you have fallen behind, that you are stuck on the “backward road.” It will say, “Everyone else is doing it—why don’t you try it just once?” It will try to pull your eyes away from God and fix them on the “fruit” that promises to make you a god—happy, successful, admired, powerful, desired.
At that moment, be careful with your soul. That fruit opens a great hole in your life—the hole of endless craving. Through it, the peace, stability, stillness, and love you receive from living with God will drain away.
This is why the Lord Jesus told us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” When the world fails to deceive you with flattery, it will turn to intimidation. It will threaten you. It will shame you. It will mock you. It will follow you like a shadow.
From insult to humiliation, from rejection to persecution, every path will be used. From your own ego—“I must be more, I must be honored”—to the world’s system built on the philosophy of “more and more,” the world will stand against you with hostility. It will laugh at you. It will crucify you. It will kill you.
This is why the Lord Jesus told us that each day we must be ready to carry our own cross. And He said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” But He did not stop there. He added:
“Take heart; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)
Because of this, even if the world crucifies you, even if it kills you, you will not remain dead. Rejoice! As you loved and followed your Lord Jesus Christ, you will rise with Him. And you will never die again.
Instead, like our Mother, the Holy Virgin Mary, with your whole soul you will be able to say—not “I,” but:
“My soul magnifies the Lord.”
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