“Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou
shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.” –
Deuteronomy 7:3
From the very beginning God has always desired the desire of
man. He never wanted pretense or token religion, he was not after false
worship or legal, robotic, rule following. He wants your heart. The
Law told you not to murder, but Christ told us not to hate. The Law told
you not to commit adultery; Christ said not to lust. He wanted to reach
past the hand and into the heart; not to take you out of the world, but take
the world out of you.
The topic of worldliness and the act of being worldly has and
will continue to befuddle many Christians. That being said, I will
readily submit that I feel inept to speak with any authority on the subject but
feel certainly compelled to table the topic for discussion. For whatever
reason, many Christians hear the word worldly and the shields go up; standing
behind their bulwarks they cry out LEGALISM! God is love and not
law! Then the conservative group hears the cries of legalism and counters
with the outcry that the liberals are worldly hiding behind a mask of
compromise. The reality is, both camps are probably right to some degree,
and in the end it matters very little because nothing is accomplished except
division. The devil loves division. Perhaps if we all put down our
swords and took a good, long, objective look at worldliness; through the lens
of the Spirit, we might find that this principle is Biblical and profitable for
ALL of God’s children. Yes, that means you, and it means me as well.
In the Old Testament the Jews were instructed NOT to
marry outside their faith. They were a peculiar people to God and this
statute was implemented in an effort for them to remain that way.
Marriage is arguably the most intimate human relationship; to bring in those
who were not of their faith would inevitably bring in values and principles
that were not consistent with the faith. This in turn would pollute the
people and the Kingdom of God would suffer for it. The same is true when
it comes to the subject of worldliness. When your heart cries out for
something in this world and you put that before God; it’s worldliness.
Worldliness is the cousin of idolatry; they are both found in the heart of man
and no list can quantify the innate desires of an unholy heart.
Worldliness is the marriage of your desires to something in this world.
You bring it into your life and it results in an unholy intimacy that forces
God and Christ out the backdoor and pollutes the people, harming the kingdom. We are consistently and constantly being
courted by the world; simply because we live in the world. Every day of our pilgrimage the naturally
calls to us to live for this life and forget the next, strive for the see and
leave off the unseen. An intimacy with
the world is a danger to our spiritual life and it demands our attention in
prayer. God warns against it throughout
the scriptures.
When you stop and consider
what Christ did for you...how he left heaven, took on the form of man, suffered
and died on a cruel cross; to save you and I from our sins...when you stop and
imagine for a few minutes where you would be without Jesus; is it too much for
God to ask of us that our heart be wholly devoted to him? Does he not
deserve our all? Can we not spend some time in reading, in praying,
to ask God to search us and see if we are in fact…..worldly. He is still
calling for us to be a “peculiar people,
zealous of good works.” He stills longs for our heart, and wants our
heart long for Him, and Him alone. Let
us “lay aside every weight and the sin
that doth so easily beset us.” Let us love God above all else. Let us let God examine the heart of
worldliness.
