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Christians are not to Love the World

You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. James 4:4 (NIV)

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 1 John 2:15, 16 (NIV)

I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. John 17:14-16

As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. John 17:18 (NIV)

The world is in opposition to God and in opposition to those that love God. The world hates them. Christians do not like to be hated by the people who surround them. Yet God wanted them to be surrounded by the world, but not tainted by it and certainly not to love the world.

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