What in the World?

Now we are nearing the end of the discussion on this very important message I believe that I received from the Lord several days ago.  So today’s topic is about our involvement with the world (see highlight below). 

Just when you think the world is at peace, I will call you to rise up, take up your cross and enter a battle.  Bring nothing with you, for I have prepared a mighty army that will fight on your behalf.  You are now living in the world’s darkest hour and just before I raise My hand in judgement.  I will smite the nations that do not honor Me.  But you will be spared if you embrace My Truth as your most sacred armament.  Avoid the entanglements of the world, for it will soon pass away.  Watch, and be ready, for then I will come for you. 

Avoid the entanglements of the world, for it will soon pass away.

I remember after returning home from a life-changing year at Bible school that I was really curious to know and very concerned about how to live in the world (system) and yet not become part of it.  Prior to going to Bible School, I had lived a lifestyle that had started out as fun, but ended up binding me in chains.  I certainly didn’t want to return to that!  So I began to search the Scripture to see what I could find about how to live in the world and not get caught up in its many pleasures and enticements like I had done before.  What resulted was a thorough study of the world in which we live (a world system that is mostly ungodly), from a Biblical perspective.  One of my papers got published, entitled “No Compromise.”  And then I spent about 25 years researching the topic of backsliding (you’ll find this word in the book of Jeremiah) and I wrote it a few times before I published it.   

In my research on backsliding, I uncovered three major things that contribute to our own backsliding (which means to turn away from God).  They are the world, the flesh (our own selves and the choices we make), and the devil, or Satan.  Most of the cause, I discovered, was the world in which we live and how we choose to respond to what’s out there.  I also discovered that I wouldn’t need too many outside sources to write the book because the Bible was absolutely filled with accounts of how people faltered in their faith because they allowed the world in which they lived to influence them and pull them away from the things of God.  Most notably, I spent a great deal of time reading about the Children of Israel and their journey through the wilderness.  I just couldn’t understand how they could continue to turn away from God even though He had miraculously freed them from slavery under cruel taskmasters back in Egypt.  What was going on anyway?  God was with them (by cloud and fire), was providing for all of their needs and they were going to a wondrous place – the Promised Land that God had promised Abraham hundreds of years before (the account of their journey is found in Exodus). 

After careful study, I started to figure out what was happening and it all had to do with the world they had left behind.  It wasn’t too far into the journey and they wanted to turn back and return to Egypt.  Why?  Hadn’t they been freed as slaves?  Wasn’t God providing for their needs?  When I came to the part where they asked Aaron to build a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments, it became clearer what was happening to them (see Exodus 32:1).  Have you ever wondered where they got the gold to build the golden calf?  It was from the gold they had pillaged on their way out of Egypt!  So even though they had been freed from the slavery in Egypt, their hearts had never changed.  They begrudgingly followed Moses, but wanted the life they had left behind.  Idolatry was their undoing and many people died that very day because of it. 

So I made another connection – if we continue to love the things of the world, our hearts will not belong exclusively to God (1 John 2:15  Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. NIV).  Is this asking a lot?  As soon as we make a choice to follow Jesus, we are choosing to give Him our all.  This is the very least we can give Him since He gave up His life for us. 

In the opening message we see the word entanglements.  Yesterday I talked about us being in a battle.  Let’s look at the following verse:

No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.  2 Timothy 2:4    

Have you ever felt like a soldier in God’s army?  I have, but probably not nearly as much as I know I should.  How easy it is to get led astray.  When I’m writing my books, my body becomes weary and my mind sometimes wanders.  I’d rather take the easy way out and go and watch some TV or go shopping.  In fact, there are times, I’ve shut off the computer and left my writing for months at a time, hardly the picture of a good soldier (I should explain that writing my articles and books is, I think, one of my life’s callings and ministries. I’ve been compelled to write inspirational material for most of my life.)  And when I am writing, sometimes I’ve taken a break to play spider solitaire or some other addicting and mindless computer game.  So time drifts by until I get some kind of a wake-up call to get busy and get back to my writing.  I’ve had to learn to discipline myself and it hasn’t been easy.  I know there are much worse distractions (entanglements) than the ones I’ve mentioned, but a distraction is a distraction, no matter what it is.  Even researching the internet can become a huge distraction.  Sometimes I’ve been looking up new card, sewing or jewelry design ideas and have killed hour after hour just surfing and going off on all sorts of tangents that had nothing to do with my original search.  Now it’s texting too.  Are we entangled in the net and can’t get out? 

Avoid the entanglements of the world, for it will soon pass away. 

Time.  It always comes down to time.  Whenever I attend a funeral, I am reminded of time as foe.  Time doesn’t wait for anybody, but rages on like a flood of water cascading over the falls.  Do we have projects we need to finish, or people we need to love and/or people we need to forgive?  Is there a friend we promised we’d call and didn’t?  Have we been putting off that really time-intensive and difficult task that we put on the shelf over a year or two ago?  I know I have.  And most important, are we ready to say goodbye to the things of this world and move forward to the next level of our spiritual life? As good and faithful stewards of the life we have been given, may we strive to keep our focus on the things that really matter, and leave behind the things that don’t. 

Thank you for reading and please join me on the next blog for the last part of the opening message.