Encouragement

Not of This World

by Lawrence Walkup 
09/10/14
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NOT OF THIS WORLD

By

Lawrence Walkup

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What does it mean when the Bible says that Christians are not of this world? It means when a person becomes born again he has entered into another world that is of the Spirit. Now Christians live in two worlds....the physical that we are familiar with....and the spiritual that we are not. Like in the physical, we also grow in the spiritual. The more we grow in the spiritual, the less important becomes the physical. We see our priorities shifting to God. God wants us to make that choice to separate ourselves more and more from the world. Ironically, the more we separate from the world, the more God can use us to benefit the world....the world made up of unbelievers that God wants to reach. We now like Jesus, are the light of the world...for the world.

The Bible defines the world as: the lust of the flesh; the lust of the eyes; and the boastful pride of life (1 John 2:16). If you go back to the beginning of the Gospels, you will see that these are the same three issues that Satan tempted Jesus with. And if you go back even further, these are the same three issues with Adam and Eve. Genesis 3:6 says: ‘When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.’

Throughout history, Satan’s tactics have not changed. Satan is recognized as the ‘god of this world.’ His goal is to keep us in his world; the world we were born into. He's not out to scare us; he's out to distract us from the truth of knowing and entering God's world. He has been so successful at blinding the minds of the unbelieving, that he has them believing he doesn’t even exist. Go out in public and talk about Satan, and see what kind of reactions you get. Not only will people not want to talk to you, they will probably run from you. The knowledgeable Christian knows that Satan does not have authority over him. Because of Jesus, Satan was declawed at the cross. Actually, Satan does not have authority even over the unbeliever. It’s just that the unbeliever is blinded to knowing what Jesus has done for him.

We Christians do not know exactly what ‘spirit’ is. We will know that when we get to the other side. For now, on this side of heaven, we live by faith and hope. Unlike the physical world, these are things that cannot be seen. However, the more we grow in faith and hope, the more we see they are more real than the physical. The true world is the spiritual, because the physical was created from the spiritual. Jesus calls Christians out of the world, to be used by him, to save the same world. As Christians we are not to love the world nor the things of the world. If we do, the love of the Father is not in us. And if the love of the Father is not in us, then what good are we to anybody?

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