What in the World Are We Doing?
Today (as of this writing, anyway) is Sunday. Many Christians are preparing to go to church (some watching online), and are also making plans for what they shall do after. For some, what they do after defines their day more than the church they attend; for many people, church is just a box to check off so that God may be appeased for one more day. What if, however, I was to say that God is not pleased by mere church attendance? Would you get offended? The problem so many of us face is we’re trying to be worldly Christians instead of Christ followers in the world. We’re trying to be creatures of Spirit and Flesh at the same time, but the two states are incompatible. So I have to ask, what in the world are we doing?
Loved ones, when we try to have the best of both worlds, we may only end up with the world, and this way, according to the scriptures, is death. The Flesh is incompatible with the Spirit. We are to have nothing to do with the world, but during our daily lives outside of church we try and have it all! We want Jesus, but not the complete transformation He desires of us! In this way, we’re deceiving ourselves in to thinking we can have it all! It’s not about saying a prayer or two, it’s not about being in or near a building, Jesus is looking at the condition of our hearts. And don’t mistake me: not the intentions we may have that we feel our good, or even our own interpretations of how good we feel we are, but an actual transformed by the Holy Spirit, heart, made not of human design, but forged and placed there by the renewal that takes place through Jesus Christ. We need to seek after God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength; He is jealous for us, and will not share our affections with anyone else. And, if our heart is renewed, His love will effect everyone and everything around us, the overflow of His love is never ending, and causes us to love all others as we ought to! Stop trusting in the world, but trust in the One who can renew it!
1 John 2:15-29
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he made to us—eternal life.
I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him.
And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.
