Free From The World - Day 3

Note

1 John 2:15-17 - “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.”

What exactly does a changed mind look like?

What does a mind still imprisoned by worldly conformity look like?

The verse from 1 John 2 gives us three hints:

Our consciousness may understand we must resist those as from the world.

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." (Romans 7:15)

Doesn't that sum up how we often live? A free mind should not only know what to do, but freely and willfully does so.

But don't we often act against what we know, deep down, we should not do.

"I want to do" drives our decisions and our love.

And it conforms to the ways of the world more often than we would like.

Want to make things even more complex?

Your mind can deceive your own mind into believing you are thinking as you should do even if you really are thinking and doing as you should not do!

Let’s use an example.

Imagine you are a comparatively wealthy man compared to your congregation. Your job is managing billions of dollars and is focused on a singular question day in and day out: “How do I make more money” since that is how you are measured and paid.

You are invited as an elder to ask the congregation to be generous in their giving.

You were asked because your total giving is much higher than the rest of the congregation since you make so much more every year.

You believe you are generous because you have given a full tithe — and the good thing is it’s hardly a dent in your spending. After a full tithe of 10%, you still bring home three times the average salary of the congregation.

Yet, you know the Scriptures have a different definition of generosity.

Jesus asks you to give, not out of your surplus, but to give as if you were giving the last portion as a poor widow.

You know this because you have read it with your own eyes. But you have convinced yourself you are generous.

Somehow those Scriptures are now hidden in plain sight from your mind.

To you, those who haven’t given as much as you in total amounts are not generous.

Despite what you say and believe, your mind is on the world.

You have skillfully used the Law to make yourself good.

And doing so blinded yourself from Jesus’ commands.

While money is not the focus, it's a good example of how the love of the world clouds our thinking to conform to those at work and around us.