Do You Struggle With The World?

There is a quote at the beginning of a DC Talk song called What If I Stumble. The quote is by Brennan Manning, he said:

“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”

What I think is the most disturbing is the way we behave as professing Christians. We are selfish, in love with the world and the pleasures of the world, we act just like the lost and then we say we devote ourselves to Christ. The Bible teaches that friendship with the world is enmity with God. We can't love God and love the things that hate God and are at war with God. The world has chosen their side, the devil, the demons, they have all chosen their side. They reject God. Those who follow God, however, we try to be on both sides. We want to have our cake and eat it too. We want to be friends with everything that is against God and claim to love God.

Let's be honest, the scripture says that we are lying when we claim we love God and love the world. We can't have it both ways. Let's be honest, if you can't live like we love God, we probably don't. We love ourselves and we love what we think God will do for us. We don't love holiness or godliness, we love the idea that God loves us and we can go to heaven. If you can't act like a Christian, chances are you aren't a Christian. If you love the world so much that you can't walk away from it, you have a problem. How do I know? Jesus said so.

"Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord' and not do what I tell you?" Luke 6:46

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments" Luke 14:15

In 1 Johns 2:15, we read "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." 

I know I struggle with being selfish and sinful and evil but God always pulls me away. I sin and fall into trouble, we all do. When we are in Christ, we are His and He will not let us just be content with sin and evil and love of the world. Maybe for a season, we find ourselves in a dark place, but we never remain in the valley.  I have been in the dark places, but I don't pitch my tent there. This isn't because I'm awesome, but because I belong to Christ. It's all from Him. Do you have that tension? Do you have a restless and unsettled spirit? Do you have a war inside you? Do you have a desire to resist evil in your spirit, even while your flesh is reaching for evil? If you don't, then you need to cry out to Jesus. 

"So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple" Luke 14:33