DO YOU LOVE THE WORLD????

Dear Brethren,This is a weighty subject. So many people claim to seek God and say that they love the Lord Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit, but is it really true in their lives? Do we realise that the self-life can easily put on a cloak of Christianity, with all the right words and even actions. The heart is deceitful above all things, who can cure it? How do you know that your heart does not maybe deceive you?One test to see where you stand in God's sight, is: DO YOU LOVE THE WORLD?The fashions, Television, Sports, speaking like the world, the music you listen to, and whatever you do. Does your everyday life testify that you have seperated from the world? That you have declared war on the things thereof? 1 John says that IF you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you!!! DO YOU LOVE THE WORLD?May we take heed lest we deceive ourselves.In His love,Gery

Gery, I think you just made a direct hit on one of our most serious sins of the church. But it is hard to see. Through familiarity, it FEELS right to us. "That's just the way of our culture" we may reason. Really it is idolatry, the sin that got Israel into so much trouble. Our fear of not having our needs met, our desire to be acceptable in society, the availability of worldly things, pleasures, etc justify our materialism by spiritualizing it - taking it into the church. Really, we have lost our contenment in God, and fill the emptiness with something from the world. When we're too busy thinking about the sins of other groups - like homosexuals, abortionists, atheits, etc, we can't see the devestation of this sin: love of the world. These concerns are generalizations. I know Christ is stirring in hearts regarding this, and some people are surrendering their holds on the world. Diane

DianeMay we ever go deeper with the Lord. That when He shows us those things we dont want to see, that we will bow and bring it into His marvelous light. Break with the world O Christians! For we are citizens not of this world.In HimGery