In my study we
are going over the difference between those who are born of God and those who
are born of this world. The instructor stated that in order for us to separate
ourselves from this world we first need to find out what that means. What does
it mean to be of this world that we must stay away from? After all, according
to the scripture above, if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him.
The world may refer to 1) the physical earth
itself; 2) the societies and institutions of human beings in general. 3) a
particular period of human history. 4) A specific sphere of cultural or
intellectual pursuit. 5) The public at large or in general (world news) 6) the
physical universe (world and everything in it) and so on.
Before I continue I would like to give you a quote that came from a man
name Henri Nouwin regarding slavery to the world and its perverse value system:
At issue here is the question: “To whom do I
belong, God or to the world? Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I
belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a
little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits, and a
little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me
down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its
waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and
preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is
mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle
resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.
As long as I keep running about asking: “Do you
love me? Do you really love me? I give all power to the voices of the world and
put myself in bondage because the world is filled with “ifs”. The world says:
“Yes, I love you if you are good-looking, intelligent, and wealthy. I love you
if you have a good education, a good job, and good connections. I love you if
you produce much, sell much, and buy much. “There are endless “ifs” hidden in
world’s love. These “ifs” enslave me, since it is impossible to respond
adequately to all of them. The world’s love is and always will be conditional.
As long as I keep looking for my true self in the world of conditional love, I
will remain “hooked” to the world-trying, failing, and trying again. It is a
world that fosters addictions because it offers cannot satisfy the deepest
craving of my heart”. (Return of the Prodigal Son; 42-43)
This is the connection between worldliness and
idolatry by trying to find your identity, your worth, your satisfaction and
your ultimate fulfillment in the realm of the transitory and the finite rather
than in God.
When I read the quote I was overwhelmed
because I am sometimes guilty of this. When we do these things, we are
actually feeding our flesh and making it stronger. We become addicted
to the impossible demands of the world. We will never be "good"
enough to satisfy the world and at the same time, we will never be
satisfied when we receive what the world has to offer. It can
also make a person feel that they would be better off by
themselves because who could find someone who would not have some
form of demands and selfishness in their "love"? And, that can
go both ways. Most of us have been going along for so
long learning to think like the world. Well, thank God there is
a way to get out of this form of thinking.
The first thing that we all have to recognize is
that it is not by works (law for instance) that we are
delivered from any of this "worlds issues, struggles, cares, thinking,
etc." (This is where we usually mess up and give up). It is all and
only made possible by God Himself. God does the act of removing. As a matter of
fact, it is already done, we just have to trust, believe,
and seek Him.
If we seek the things that are above, where
Yeshua (Jesus) is seated at the right hand of God; focus
your thoughts on the things above-not on the things here on
earth-for you have died, and your life has been hidden with The
Messiah in God. Then when Yeshua who is your life, appears, you too will
appear with Him in glory (Col 3:1-4). All of this turns on our faith…If
we are spiritually identified with Yeshua, we are “dead” to this age and
therefore are awakened to a realm that transcends the appeals of carnal flesh
(olam habah). The aorist verb “you have died” indicates “you have died once for
all,” that is, that this is a condition granted by the power and agency of God
on your behalf. You don’t “try to die” to the flesh; you accept what God has
done by killing its power over you through Yeshua…You are dead to this world;
you are dead to sin’s power; you are set free and no longer enslaved to the
deception of the worldly matrix, etc. Now you are made alive to an entirely
greater and more powerful order and dimension of reality, namely, the spiritual
reality that is not disclosed to the vanity of this age. Therefore we are to
consciously focus our thoughts on the hidden reality of God rather than on the
temporal world that is passing away: “For we are looking not to the things that
are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are
transient (just for a season), but the things that are unseen are eternal (2
Cor. 4:18)
I've had someone tell me that they cannot always think
the way the LORD wants us to think and the reason for this
is because they have to live their life differently in order
to survive. I've tried many times to get through to them that this is
possible for ALL who belongs to God and it saddens me that this person has a
hard time completely putting their trust and faith at work. I've written a
paper about my life called frequency. It was a time period during my life
when the choices I made caused me to lose the frequency connection that I
have with God because I chose to do things my way. I started to confuse what
was right and what was wrong and not only that, I started to justify wrong to
make it appear right to me so that I could continue to live wrong.
I feel like using Stephen Colbert voice: Now
folks... If there is nothing else that I have learned in this
great life of mines is that people can find absolutely anything
"wrong" to argue about and make it seem right in their eyes.
It's an amazing ability they have to make themselves
be their own fool. For instance, I saw a married
couple on Dr. Phil who have an open marriage and see nothing wrong with it.
They say it makes their life more fulfilling. The worst part of that show
was their children, young teens, agree with their parent’s lifestyle and say that
they do not believe that a person can be faithful to one person for the rest of
their life. My thing is...if having one partner is too boring for you, than why
not get lots of partners. Based on their argument shouldn't it be the more the
merrier? She only added one other partner. How is that being
more fulfilling? To me her situation is worse because now she have
two long term partners that she has to see every day. At this
rate she should be really bored and wasn't the whole idea of having an
open relationship is so that you can be fulfilled with something new and
different? Another example... I read in the paper where a police
officer told a woman that she should not dress in a way that may give the
appearance of looking like a prostitute. The lady was offended and got a
bunch of women to protest saying that women should be able to dress like
prostitutes if they want to and picked a day (holiday) to dress
promiscuous. There was a couple who lived in England who had a child and chose
not to tell what sex the child is so that when the child grows up, they can
make up their own mind what it is they would like to be. Like Dr. Phil
said, common sense just isn't common anymore. I say the world has no spiritual
sense at all and will turn anything evil into something that would look
appealing to them and the world.
When we have close people around us who only
have the cares of the world and do not want to live their life to please
the LORD, then we need to keep a distance away from them. There was a time
in my life when I made a conscious choice to do wrong and one of
the main reasons for that is because I had someone in my life that only
cared about the cares of the world and I didn't want to break up with him. I
thank God that He rescued me from that toxic relationship but I can't have the
LORD get me out of one bad relationship just to get myself right back into
another bad relationship. Which if we are all honest, a lot of us have done
that. That also includes friendships as well.
Now if we truly cared about the Kingdom of heaven
and all of its righteousness, living by it, then those who oppose it will
eventually leave you anyway. You cannot back down and you cannot
compromise!
All of us as Christian should have the love
of the Father in us and if we find that we may fall short, then we know what we
must do.
May the LORD God Almighty help us know who we are
in our glorious Savior Yeshua. Amen.
I love you,
Angela R. Ingram
