Peace with God or Peace with the World

"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. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world."

In the last devotion we explained how, before we came to a saving faith is Jesus Christ, we were enemies of God because of our rebellion against God.  He was Our enemy but he was a good enemy who loves us.

However, once we were justified by faith, and we were at Peace with God, He is no longer our enemy, but now we have many other enemies in His place, not the least of which, are the World, the Flesh and the Devil.  These are nasty enemies who seek our destruction.

The world that God is talking about here is not the trees, mountains, streams and other parts of the physical world, but rather, He is referring to to invisible, spiritual systems of evil, dominated by Satan. As stated in Ephesians 2:1-3, “ And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others”.

The world has a secular mind set in which all that matters is the “here and now “.  Like the beer commercial that says you only go around once in life, so you have to grab all the gusto you can.  The world’s philosophies and ideologies and what they offer appear attractive and appealing.  They are deceptive and their nature is evil, harmful, satanic, and it can hold man’s soul captive.  The Christian must reject the world for what it is and for what it does.  God, not the world, must have the first place in the Christian’s life.  Tomorrow we will talk about the flesh.

During this pandemic, many of our worldly desires have been temporarily removed.  Now is the perfect time to assess your withdrawal from those missing items.  Identify those worldly items you have missed most during this pandemic.  When this pandemic ends, which worldly items will you be able to permanently discard?  Have you spent any time with God thanking Him for the break from the world in order to set yourself free from it’s grasp?