Oct. 16,2024 THE WORLD AS I SEE IT.
Here’s an interesting thought. Jesus said it in his prayer in John 17 v 16
They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. asv
Let me illustrate that.
I found an illustration you might use to demonstrate this verse. You take a clear bottle, putting water in the bottom, then food coloring, (to make the water visible). Now add a layer of cooking old on the top. When you shake the bottle the oil and water are mixed up and the oil is invisible. But then set it down and after a while the oil and water separate, and the oil floats to the top. So we observe – even when we are all mixed up, the oil and the water never really become one. (I forget where that illustration comes from I’ve read it in different sources)
So this is a prayer of Jesus for his disciples. His disciples back then and for us today. Yes for us.
And He prays that GOD will sanctify us in the truth, the Word. Sanctify means separate / it also means holy, pure. I think Jesus means both here. So this task that we find difficult – being not of the world, is something that GOD can do for us. We try in so many way to separate ourselves from the world and fail again and again. But the means is there all the time. The Word. Read Ps.19:7-14
We can talk about that later.
I want to talk about our world. Our world is in the worst of time (I wish we could add that Dickens line “the best of times” but I don’t think we can.) By “our world” I’m speaking of our country and the western culture. Have there been the worst times in the history of the world? Probably. But that doesn’t lessen our disintegrating culture. Truth is relative, circumstantial. We no longer know the difference between a man and a woman. Sexual morals are nonexistent. Marriage is defined by the courts. All forms of media are filled with violence. Even in programing that was highly rated (The West Wing in the early 1999- 2006) almost every character was immoral in conduct and with the exception of the president’s character and his wife were non-religious. And that was just one example of programming that bends the minds of people.
And added to this is the constant bombardment of advertising that teaches our worth is based on material gains. The result has been the total disintegration of our culture in just a short 50 years.
They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. asv
What can we do?
Here’s where we must begin. Rom 12:1-2
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. nasu
Nothing short of this will work. We must cry louder. Christians must unite, take a stand, by what we say and what we support, and what we are willing to do without, to make a point. We are not of this world.
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