Reimagining our Relationship with the world.

A Study based on First John 2:12, 17 on the Daily Bible refresh with Dr.

Brad Miller.

Hello good people.

Welcome to Daily Bible Refresh with Dr.

Brad Miller.

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We come to you every day giving you a reading that is based on the selective reading from the Revised Common Lectionary.

That's a three year cycle that reads through the entire Bible.

We're in year C in the epiphany season.

We give you a reading that is understandable.

We read from the New Testament, the message version of the Bible.

Relatable.

We give you a few points to ponder.

Applicable give you an action step.

We have a prayer and we do all of that in under 10 minutes.

This is our reading for the day.

This is from First John 2:12, 17.

First John is the Epistle of John, not the Gospel of John.

Reading from the message Loving the world.

I remind you, my dear children, your sins are forgiven in Jesus name.

You veterans who are in the ground floor and know the one who started all this, you newcomers have won a big victory over the evil one.

And a second reminder, dear children, you know the Father from personal experience.

You veterans know the one who started it all.

And you newcomers, such vitality and strength.

God's Word is so steady in you.

Your fellowship with God enables you to gain a victory over the evil one.

Don't love the world's ways.

Don't love the world's goods.

Love the world.

Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.

Practically everything that goes on in the world.

Wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important has nothing to do with the Father.

It just isolates you from Him.

The world is all about wanting, wanting.

Wanting is on the way out.

But whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

That's the end of the reading.

Wow, what a powerful one.

And it is really about exploring this passage from First John that talks about kind of rejection of worldly ways and offers us some profound insights about really what authentic living and kind of resistance to the worldly ways capitalistic culture, consumer culture is all about.

Let's look at some points to ponder.

Number one is goes about kind of beyond a duality or binary thinking.

When John speaks of the world, he's not advocating of withdrawal from creation or human society.

Rather he's addressing systems of domination and exploitation, what we might today call consumer capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, this isn't about rejecting the physical world, but it's about resisting systems that commodify both people and our planet.

Point number two is about intergenerational wealth or intergenerational wisdom and growth.

John addresses both veterans and newcomers.

Did you get that part?

And acknowledging different stages of the spiritual journey that isn't really about a hierarchical way of thinking.

This models an inclusive community where both long term wisdom and fresh perspectives are valued.

Progressive faith communities can learn from this.

Where we honor tradition while embracing new understandings and voices.

Number three, and I love this point is about redefining wanting the text critique of wanting your own way.

Wanting everything for yourself isn't about denying human needs or desires.

Instead, it challenges the commodification of of desire itself.

In our age of, you know, kind of targeted advertising and consumerism about manufactured wants.

This is a radical critique of how capitalism shapes our desires and relationships.

Let's talk about an action step.

Conduct a desire audit of yourself.

When you feel a want or a craving, pause and ask, is this desire authentic to my values and to our community's well being?

Or is it manufactured by some personal sense of want or a need to be engaged in the system of consumption?

And choose a specific way to redirect resources from individual consumption to community care.

Whether that's by supporting some mutual way to support other people, like some sort of a food cooperative perhaps, or maybe some way of sharing our resources.

We're gonna have a prayer just a minute.

But I always want to remind you that we have a resource to share with you.

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You could find it along with our entire back catalog, over 800 episodes of Daily Bible Refresh at voiceofgod daily.com let's pray.

Oh God, you are the source of authentic love.

We live in a world of endless wanting, where our algorithms predict our desires before we even feel them.

Help us distinguish between the hunger for justice and the appetite for status, between love for your creation and consumption of your gifts.

Guidance in building communities where elders and newcomers share wisdom, where success is measured in connection, not consumption.

Give us courage to want differently, to want justice more than convenience, community more than competition, so that there is enough for all instead of excess for a few.

Remind us that we are.

That we are already enough, already loved, already whole.

In this truth, may we find freedom to live and to love authentically.

Amen.

Well, thank you indeed for joining me here today on Daily Bible Refresh.

Always a joy and a privilege.

Hope that you'll join me again tomorrow and bring a friend.

My name is Dr.

Brad Miller.

We drop our episodes before 6am every single day.

Until that time.

Let me remind you that God's loyal love doesn't run out.

His merciful love hasn't dried up.

It's created new every morning.