“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, isn’t the Father’s, but is the world’s.”

The sum total of the attractions of this fallen world are summed up here in this verse. We love the things of this world because they appeal to our fallen humanity. Our human flesh is always at the forefront of our daily considerations and the comfort of the body is paramount to our thinking – eating, drinking, clothing, sleeping, sexual needs, intellectual needs, etc. We seek every day to fulfil these needs and if we are not Christians, that is all life is about. We seek the fulfilment of our psyche as human animals, for that is all we are and how we live without the Holy Spirit of God. There is no Spirit in us, for we are dead to God. To overcome this total preponderance with the flesh, we need a work of God in our life to change us and enliven our souls to God.

Our eyes are the first port of call for temptation and the tolerance of the call of this world’s goods. We see things we like and our covetous hearts desire them. This ranges from people, things, lifestyles and mindsets. We see what we like and we want it and the wanting drives us to pursue our goals to get what we want. We cannot help it since we are hard-wired to desire the things of this life. Only an act of a God can break the chain and give us desires for spiritual life, rather than “stuff.” We seek the eyes of contentment.

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

1 Timothy 6:6

To live life in this way is only achievable through the Spirit of God, who teaches and empowers us to live such worthy lives for God. We stop craving and start living and being thankful for such things as we have been given. Anything else is just following the natural inclination of our human hearts to seek the folly of pride and being regarded in this life by other people and our own conceits.

The lust of our fleshly self, the constant craving of the eyes and the heart full of human pride is not of the Father in heaven. We reject these ways of thinking and being and follow the pathway of repentance for sin, resisting temptations and humility of thought and deed. This is the supernatural way of God and those who belong to Him will live in it. We only realise this as we draw close to our Lord Jesus and gain understanding of the way He walked through this world. This is how we follow Him and glorify Him in our daily life.