There is a big difference between starting and finishing the course.”
–D.C. Adkisson (Winter of the Wolves)
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
–John 16:33 (NKJV)
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How to Live in a Pagan, Apostate, and Foolish World
Key Verse: “We know we are children of God and that the world around us is under the power and control of the evil one.” –1 John 5:19 (NLT)
John is emphatically telling us in no uncertain terms that the whole object of his writing is for each one of us to KNOW that we possess eternal life. He writes, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13, NASB). Think of that! We are now standing on the threshold of eternity!
Life isn’t over for the believer at death, it is just beginning. As children of God we can rest assured in this. We cannot know God apart from Jesus Christ. The world may tell us that there are many ways to God, or that God does not even exist, but friend, we know, we know, we know. Remember the old saying, “born once two deaths, born twice one death.” For the child of God eternity is not about death or sorrow, but about living with Christ through the ages to come.
Then why do we have this attitude toward the world? Why do we harbor materialism, humanism seeking those things that will hinder our walk with Christ? What in this world really can interest me? People seek to obtain, more and more–why? This world holds nothing on us.
“According to John, Christians are men and women who have come to view the world in an entirely new manner. They see that it is governed by sin. They have come to regard it as a place in which evil forces are at work and whose whole mind is but the working of the spirit of the world. They know that it is something they have to fight, some-thing to withstand, and they realize that unless they do so they will be defeated.”
–D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
True Christians are those who have overcome the world. Christ has redeemed us. We are new creatures and we are rising above the world and the lusts thereof. We are conquerors, in fact more than conquerors. As we travel through the world the Christian has come to recognize that, yes, we are in the world, but the world no longer is my home; I am not of it. Yes, there may be times of sin and failure in my journey, but I do not dally in it, I do not stay down and grovel in it, I do not gloat over it. I know that He is faithful and just to forgive (1 John 1:9). Keeping God’s commandments become paramount for those who love Christ will keep His commandments.
We don’t travel on our journey heavy-hearted, but we think of the glory that awaits us and we recall the words of Paul.
“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
–2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NASB)
What do we love? What draws our attention? Is Christ really all I need (Psalm 23:1). Oh, Lord, help us to keep our eyes only on You as we travel in this life.
“My Jesus I love Thee, I know thou art mine,
To the all the follies of sin I resign,
My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou,
If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now.”
–William Ralf Featherstone