I stopped and thought today of how when I was trying to survive my marriage and stay godly,I was in torment, even though I refused to adopt the worlds ways. I longed for God, tried to serve God in my own will, but I also still didn't hate the world, nor did I measure up to what it took to have victory in my efforts toward God as well.
The circumstances of my marriage brought me to weaken my resolve to be able to give up to God completely, in those last few year. I was flat out miserable. In my "Christianess" and wouldn't have been happy if I surrendered to the world either, misery was my middle ground to my lack of commitment to either spiritual bookends in my life.. I hadn't loved God enough, and I had loved the world still, despite despising it! In essence, not hating the world enough to commit to the Lord's absoluteness.. Then I think of my wife, who left the Christ- centered position as well, for the moral substitute. And yet I remember her not being miserable, but happy, I know God's Word tells me she could not be at peace, but she was indeed happy, unlike myself!
So, I have let God stew in me the uncovering of all this in my Mind and spirit, and soul today...
The term "World" is used to mean the material world, and the men and women in it-- we are all "in it" in this sense. The Bible says that "God so loved the world...."---and the unfathomable depth of His love is in that word "so"--yet it also says that "whosoever would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God." James 4:4. The apparent contradiction can be explained like this--God's love for the world is the kind of love that makes Him go to all lengths in order to remove the sin and evil from it.
Love to be anything at all must be personal; to love without hating is an impossibility and the stronger and more Empathetic the love,the more intense is the obverse or opposite position of hatred. God loves the world so much that He hates with a perfect hatred the thing that switched men wrong; and Calvary is the measure of His hatred. The natural heart of man argues--"God so loves the world that, of course He will forgive it's sin."God so loved the world that He could not forgive it's sin. There is no such thing as God overlooking sin, therefore if He does forgive there must be a reason that justifies Him in doing so.
To be "a friend of the world" means that we take the world as it is and are perfectly delighted with it- the world is alright and we are very happy in it, and I was doing, partly this, in the later stages of my marriage, yet not wholly. Never has the idea been that the worldly must be unhappy; he/she is perfectly happy, as thoroughly happy as a Christian.
The people who are unhappy, like myself a part of time in my marriage, are the worldly people or the Christians if they are not at one with the principle which unites them. If a worldly person is not worldly at heart, he is miserable; and if a Christian is not a Christian at heart, he too is miserable; and if a Christian is not a Christian he carries his Christianity like a headache instead of something worth having, and not being able to get rid of his head, he cannot get rid of his headache. A worldly person is not immoral, my ex-wife is an example of this, he or she is one who wisely keeps within the bounds of the disposition which the Bible, alone, reveals as sinful., as to the relationship to my claim to the right to myself. So, as pretty as it may appear, it is as lost as any sinner.
The Bible reveals the solidarity of sin, a bond of union that keeps men together, it is the mutual inheritance of the human race--"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Romans 5:12. Satan is anxious to keep that solidarity intact because whenever it breaks out into immoral acts it disintegrates his Kingdom. Two things disintegrate the solidarity of sin--the breaking out into overt acts of sin, and the conviction of the Spirit of God. This will be found to be the solution of a number of moral problems.
Thus, to love the world is the wrong kind of love, even as lovely as it may seem.To see the beauty in morality alone with God withstanding in it, is that sentiment that is the "enemy of God," because it means I am the friend of the system of things which does not take God into account. We are to love the world in the way God loves it, and be ready to spend and be spent until the wrong and evil are removed from it.
When Jesus said, "I pray not for the world,...." it did not mean He was indifferent to the world, or despised it: His work for the world is to save it. In thinking about the world we are apt to overlook the greatest factor of all from the Bible standpoint; that man belongs to a fallen race. In our intellectual conceptions the Fall has no place at all; the human race is looked upon as a crowd of innocent babes in the wood. The Bible looks upon the human race as it is; as the result of a mutiny against God.; consequently, you find in the Bible something you find in no other book or conception.
The modern view of man is--what a marvelous promise of what he is going to be! The Bible looks at man and sees the ruin of what he once was. In the Bible everything is based on the fact that there is something wrong at the basis of things.
So, do we fan the flames of hate over the things God hates? And as we love intensely, even all the more so? Do we hate the world so, that we love God with all our hearts, being given the depth of that power of love to be wrought out in us to realness seen evident in our walk? And do we see the thing God sees in happiness. That it is the Spirit's outcome that matters in the real happiness we have in either of the two options of happiness, to see the true meaning of happiness itself properly, by way of the Holy Spirit speaking to us.?
......May the only spirit that offers us peace give way to our minds understandings of these principles I pray...Amen!
The circumstances of my marriage brought me to weaken my resolve to be able to give up to God completely, in those last few year. I was flat out miserable. In my "Christianess" and wouldn't have been happy if I surrendered to the world either, misery was my middle ground to my lack of commitment to either spiritual bookends in my life.. I hadn't loved God enough, and I had loved the world still, despite despising it! In essence, not hating the world enough to commit to the Lord's absoluteness.. Then I think of my wife, who left the Christ- centered position as well, for the moral substitute. And yet I remember her not being miserable, but happy, I know God's Word tells me she could not be at peace, but she was indeed happy, unlike myself!
So, I have let God stew in me the uncovering of all this in my Mind and spirit, and soul today...
The term "World" is used to mean the material world, and the men and women in it-- we are all "in it" in this sense. The Bible says that "God so loved the world...."---and the unfathomable depth of His love is in that word "so"--yet it also says that "whosoever would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God." James 4:4. The apparent contradiction can be explained like this--God's love for the world is the kind of love that makes Him go to all lengths in order to remove the sin and evil from it.
Love to be anything at all must be personal; to love without hating is an impossibility and the stronger and more Empathetic the love,the more intense is the obverse or opposite position of hatred. God loves the world so much that He hates with a perfect hatred the thing that switched men wrong; and Calvary is the measure of His hatred. The natural heart of man argues--"God so loves the world that, of course He will forgive it's sin."God so loved the world that He could not forgive it's sin. There is no such thing as God overlooking sin, therefore if He does forgive there must be a reason that justifies Him in doing so.
To be "a friend of the world" means that we take the world as it is and are perfectly delighted with it- the world is alright and we are very happy in it, and I was doing, partly this, in the later stages of my marriage, yet not wholly. Never has the idea been that the worldly must be unhappy; he/she is perfectly happy, as thoroughly happy as a Christian.
The people who are unhappy, like myself a part of time in my marriage, are the worldly people or the Christians if they are not at one with the principle which unites them. If a worldly person is not worldly at heart, he is miserable; and if a Christian is not a Christian at heart, he too is miserable; and if a Christian is not a Christian he carries his Christianity like a headache instead of something worth having, and not being able to get rid of his head, he cannot get rid of his headache. A worldly person is not immoral, my ex-wife is an example of this, he or she is one who wisely keeps within the bounds of the disposition which the Bible, alone, reveals as sinful., as to the relationship to my claim to the right to myself. So, as pretty as it may appear, it is as lost as any sinner.
The Bible reveals the solidarity of sin, a bond of union that keeps men together, it is the mutual inheritance of the human race--"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Romans 5:12. Satan is anxious to keep that solidarity intact because whenever it breaks out into immoral acts it disintegrates his Kingdom. Two things disintegrate the solidarity of sin--the breaking out into overt acts of sin, and the conviction of the Spirit of God. This will be found to be the solution of a number of moral problems.
Thus, to love the world is the wrong kind of love, even as lovely as it may seem.To see the beauty in morality alone with God withstanding in it, is that sentiment that is the "enemy of God," because it means I am the friend of the system of things which does not take God into account. We are to love the world in the way God loves it, and be ready to spend and be spent until the wrong and evil are removed from it.
When Jesus said, "I pray not for the world,...." it did not mean He was indifferent to the world, or despised it: His work for the world is to save it. In thinking about the world we are apt to overlook the greatest factor of all from the Bible standpoint; that man belongs to a fallen race. In our intellectual conceptions the Fall has no place at all; the human race is looked upon as a crowd of innocent babes in the wood. The Bible looks upon the human race as it is; as the result of a mutiny against God.; consequently, you find in the Bible something you find in no other book or conception.
The modern view of man is--what a marvelous promise of what he is going to be! The Bible looks at man and sees the ruin of what he once was. In the Bible everything is based on the fact that there is something wrong at the basis of things.
So, do we fan the flames of hate over the things God hates? And as we love intensely, even all the more so? Do we hate the world so, that we love God with all our hearts, being given the depth of that power of love to be wrought out in us to realness seen evident in our walk? And do we see the thing God sees in happiness. That it is the Spirit's outcome that matters in the real happiness we have in either of the two options of happiness, to see the true meaning of happiness itself properly, by way of the Holy Spirit speaking to us.?
......May the only spirit that offers us peace give way to our minds understandings of these principles I pray...Amen!