What is the world to me? God loves the world

I believe it would be tone-deaf and inappropriate for me to choose this particular moment to resume my prior series; that kind of thing in its own time. This post, in its way, intends to engage current events with a Christian response. 

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Before I have written at length on how the faithful cultivate a heart like God's and pursue actions like God's in their humility, loving kindness, and goodwill. (Series index.) In that light, I'd like to consider one phrase: "For God so loved the world." It's easy to think of "the world" in the sense of "worldliness" as in the well-known hymn, "What is the world to me?" which reflects on the vanities that we do well to avoid. By itself, though, it is incomplete for a Christian to picture the world only in terms of its vanities. "For God so loved the world." For all its messiness, for all its heartaches and troubles, God loves the world.

What is the world to me? 

• The gift of God's creation, very good in every way. 
• His providence, his grace for all that he has made
  
• The declaration of God's glory. 
• The beauty of holiness.
• The home of his people, the bride for his salvation. 

God loves the world and the people in it. The core of God's being, the fountain of God's grace, the origin of morality itself, is love. If our calling is to be like God as beloved children are like their Father, then our calling is to love the world as he does.