Two Opposing World Views

There are two opposing world views, namely a secular and a biblical world view. The Christian must constantly guard against letting the secular world views from tainting their ways of thinking and acting. Too often today, we find Christians compromising the word of God in order to justify a change in their beliefs, actions, or life style. We are all going to fail and are constantly in need of being brought under conviction of the Holy Spirit unto repentance for forgiveness of sin. As long as we are alive, we are in a spiritual battle, fighting against powers and principalities of the darkness of the world and against our old sinful nature. We strive to become more like Christ, and this is a life long on-going process. None of us will reach perfection until we see our Savior face to face when He will complete His work in us. The battle is for the mind & in the heart.

As we seek to be more Christ like, we must recognize there is a difference between committing a sin and practicing sin till we no longer even recognize it as sin. We are not to compromise God's word or be conformed by secular thought or world view. Rather, we are to 'renew' our minds by the "washing of the water of the word." We are to be 'transformed' by the word that we might have 'the mind of Christ.' This struggle to resist the world, Satan, and our own flesh is at the root of the problem. One or the other will win- we can not serve two masters. No one can be obedient to God and yet hold fast to the ambivalent, relative, and always changing values of the secular world.

There is no neutral position with God; we are either with Him or against Him. The problem is that today too many of us have become fence sitters, trying to live with one foot in the worldly realm and one in the godly realm. So what do we have now? We have a body of professing Christians who are either walking in opposition to the word out of lack of knowledge, ignorance of God's word, or, out of outright rebellion, we have become so conformed to the world that no one can see any difference between us and the unbelievers of the world. We are willing to undermine the word of the Father and exalt man's thoughts and ways above the ways of The Lord. No wonder the word describes us as neither hot nor cold, no longer the salt of the earth, having an appearance of religion, but lacking the power thereof. How sad that God has said for many of us that He will look at us and say "I knew you not," and spew us out of His mouth.

If you have never read the book of Jeremiah, as a Christian in today's world, it is most relative to the conditions found within the body of Christ today. Jeremiah was sent to bring the word of God to the body of believers, not to unbelievers. Time and time again, they were warned to obey The Lord, 'that all may go well with you.' Instead, the people refused time and time again to heed the warnings that they must listen, hear, and obey the word of God or receive the consequences. The Israelites, God's chosen people, believers, brought disaster down upon themselves. Once again, we are refusing to learn from history as we continually determine to walk in the same stiff-necked, rebellious paths of old. As believers, we are going down the very same wide path that leads to our own destruction. We choose to ignore, compromise, and even pervert the word of The Lord to accommodate what we find to be convenient and pleasing to our own way of thinking, whether it is pleasing in the sight of The Lord or not. Not only have our hearts not been convicted unto repentance for our daily failures, but too often our hearts have been so turned away from God that we have become comfortable in living with iniquity and even abominations. We ‘practice’ sin so that it becomes 'normal' and acceptable. We no longer even recognize it to be sinful, for it has now become 'right' in our own eyes.

I encourage each of us to take time to read the book of Jeremiah. Sad to say, it is like picking up any newspaper, and witnessing first hand the total destruction of what once was our great nation. Believers of today are just like the Israelites of old. The Lord has provided us with His full counsel of His word. Yet we, who say we serve God, are becoming watered down, soggy, and ineffective. While we sleep and keep our heads in the sand, the world around us is falling apart because we are falling away from the One that should be our first love. Will we return our hearts totally to Him and hearken unto the voice of the Lord, or will we continue to turn our backs on Him? If we do not seek to ‘be being filled’ daily by His Holy Spirit through His word, prayer, and encouraging one another to take a bold stand for Him, we contribute to our own downfall through our own silence and apathy. Holy Father, forgive us and have mercy upon us. We, the ones who profess to believe in you, are finding it easier and easier to ignore and forget you. Lord, I pray, do whatever it takes to turn our hearts back to Thee. Give us spiritual eyes to see, spiritual ears to hear, and a heart of flesh ( not of stone) that we may once again know the joy that can come only through putting you first in our lives, listening to and obeying the word of The Lord by the power of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen

Hearken unto the Voice of the Lord!!!

Ginger Rahn