Focus: The World In Me

Text: Jh.15:19

"I have chosen you out of the world."

By an act of grace God has chosen the believer in Christ out of the world. Jesus Christ tells us that we are IN the world, but not OF the world.

Christ has taken us out of the world, and He wants to take the world out of us. He wants to see the yoke of worldliness totally broken in our lives. He wants to see the lure and charm of worldliness lose their hold of us. John tells us that "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1Jh.5:19). This world sits on the very laps of the wicked one - Satan himself.

This is what the Holy Scripture says about Moses: "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, REFUSED to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; CHOOSING rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; ESTEEMING the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had RESPECT unto the recompense of the reward" (Heb.11:24-26). Moses came of age, and he showed it by rejecting the throne of Egypt as the son of Pharaoh's daughter. He was given every required training to assume the throne of Egypt, but Moses would not bulge. He arrived at a point in his life when the glory of Egypt meant nothing to him anymore. He was still in Egypt, but Egypt was no more in him. God chose him out of Egypt, and as he matured in the awareness of his mission and destiny, God took Egypt out of him. In the same vein, as we grow in our relationship and fellowship with God we begin to realize that this world holds nothing of eternal worth for us. Moses was done with Egypt forever. The treasures of Egypt were worthless to him. 

Those who have seen the invisible see nothing else. They are persuaded and driven by invisible realities.

Moses had regard for the reward that God alone would give. Nothing else mattered to him but divine approval. The trappings of worldliness did not have any effect on his soul. John tells us what this world is all about. He says, "For all that is in the world, the lust of the FLESH, and the lust of the EYES, and the PRIDE of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world" (1Jh.2:16). O Lord, help us!

God wants us to be otherworldly, not worldly. God wants us to be godly, not ungodly. God wants us to practice holy worldliness, which implies living in the world without living like the world.

Jesus Christ got us out of the world, and if we let Him, He wants to get the world out of us.

We are the people of the coming world. We are the people of the other world. We are already in the present times tasting the powers of the world to come. Peter writes of that world, and says, "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness" (2Pet.3:13). 

From this world of sin and wickedness, we are moving into a new world in which righteousness will be absolutely at home. The best of worlds lies before us, not behind us. Let the world inside us make way for the world to come. Let us heed the words of Samuel Rutherford, "We are as near to heaven as we are far from self, and far from the love of a sinful world."

by Bishop Moses E. Peter