SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 07-10-04
My Worship Time Focus:
Love not the world
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: 1John 2:15-16
Message of the verse: “15 Love not the world, neither the things
that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not
in him. 16 For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not
of the Father, but is of the world.”
(NASB) “15 Don’t love the world’s
ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the
Father. 16 Practically everything that
goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself,
wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates
you from him.” (Message)
“Worldliness: anything in a Christian’s life that causes
him to lose his enjoyment of the Father’s love or his desire to do the Father’s
will is worldly and must be avoided. Responding
to the Father’s love (your personal devotional life), and doing the Father’s
will (your daily conduct)—these are two tests of worldliness.” (Be Real)
In these verses John tells his readers not to love the
world, nor the things that are in the world.
God has given certain desires to His children, such as hunger,
weariness, and sex, which in and of themselves are not wrong. However if a person eats too much, sleeps to
much, or has sex outside the boundaries that God has shown him in His Word,
then these good things become wrong, or worldly.
The message gives a good
understanding of the next phrase of this verse, “Love of the world squeezes out
love for the Father.” This makes it easy
to understand.
John goes on in the next verse to
give three things that are in this worlds system that can do much harm to the
believer, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of
life. It is interesting that Satan used
these three tactics to cause Eve to fall.
“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.” Good
for food is the lust of the flesh, pleasing to the eye is lust of the eyes, and
it was desirable for gaining wisdom is the pride of life.
As believers we can become friends
with the world, (James 4:4), “You adulterers! Don’t you
realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God? I say it
again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God.” Next a believer can be spotted with the
world, (James 1:27), “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is
this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep
himself unspotted from the world.”
John give the next step to this downward spiral of the believer, when in
1John 2:15 he writes that the believer is not to love the world, so it is
possible for a believer to love the world.
The next step is found in Romans 12:2 where Paul tells the Roman
believers not to be conformed to the world.
“Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into
its own mould, but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude of mind is
changed. Thus you will prove in practice that the will of God is good,
acceptable to him and perfect.”
The Phillips version gives the meaning of the Greek word conformed as
being squeezed into its mold. The last
step is to be condemned with the world, and that is found in 1Cor. 11:32, “But when we are judged and disciplined by the Lord, we will
not be condemned with the world.”
Lot’s life shows this downward
spiral is possible in the life of a believer.
Probably is Peter would not have wrote about “righteous Lot,” few people
would have figured he was a believer.
First Lot looked toward Sodom.
Next he pitched his tent toward Sodom in the well-watered plains of
Jordan. Then he moved into Sodom. Next when Sodom was captured by the enemy,
Lot was captured, too, even though he was a believer. When God destroyed Sodom everything Lot lived
for went up in smoke, he was saved so as by fire and lost of eternal
rewards. (1Cor. 3:12-15) “ Now anyone who
builds on that foundation may use gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or
straw. But there is going to come a time
of testing at the judgment day to see what kind of work each builder has done.
Everyone’s work will be put through the fire to see whether or not it keeps its
value. If the work survives the fire,
that builder will receive a reward.
But
if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builders
themselves will be saved, but like someone escaping through a wall of flames.”
(NLT)
Spiritual meaning for my life today:
In order for me to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord I must stay
away from falling into the trap of the world’s system. Romans 12:2 gives me a good way of not
falling into this trap where is says but be transformed by the renewing of your
mind, so that I can prove what is pleasing to the Lord. Transformation is the key to be pleasing to
the Lord. The Spirit of God uses the
Word of God to transform me into the image of Christ.
The Word
of God was full of challenges for me as I studied it this morning.
My Steps of Faith Today: Believe that the Lord will direct my path, and give me the
grace to handle what He has for me to do.
Continue to trust the Lord with the things He is doing in Canada with
our investments.
Memory verses of the
week: 1Cor. 13:4-7
Love is
patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not
arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked,
does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in
unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.
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