What’s your take on living for Jesus “in the world but not of it”? (John 17:14-15).
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benpuah on March 26, 2009 at 9:31 am
I think what the verse means to me is that Jesus has given us His word. We are to obey His word, doing His work and people will hate us.
Example of things that people might hate us: being a missionary and share the gospel, choose to lead righteous lives all in this WORLD etc…
All this things make us stand as witness to this world.
The moment we become christians does not mean we are safe from every other threat in this world. But God wants us to take His word to everyone on earth starting from our simple network of friends/classmates/co-workers.
By doing God’s work and choosing not to abide to this world means people will hate us, amidst all this hate may the love of Christ abounds more and the Lord’s protection be on us as well.
kingskid on March 26, 2009 at 11:32 am
I think that as human beings we are fleshly and our senesces are bombarded by all the world throws at us. So we are of the world, we are born into this world and we will grow to the end of days here. To be in this world, is to be carnally minded and follow the world and we know the prince of this world will lead us to destruction.
Being born again we become spiritual and do not walk after the flesh but after the spirit. Walking after the flesh we can not please God, because the flesh has been condemned. Not being of this world the world hates us, not that the world hate us personally but hates the One we walk after, Jesus.
We are no longer of the world because we choose not to do the works for the flesh but the works of the spirit. Romans 8 and Galatians’ 5 give us some really good guidelines to follow in knowing the difference between being in the world and of the world.
hwestcomb on March 26, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Matthew 22:37-40 do this and follew the Holy Spirit; and the world will not look so big.
learning2serv on March 26, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Within the past month I have had the wonder-filled privilege of witnessing two births – the first was a spiritual birth, the second was natural. Though the differences were obvious, there are surprising similarities.
The areas where the similarities are striking is attention and feeding! Babies need a great deal of attention and you must be careful what you feed them.
To be “in the world and not of it” requires not simply receiving the wonder of Christ as savior, but transformation of one’s mind (Rom 12.2) – eating the Word and having someone there to show you the way.
We quickly learn were are different, and have to maintain that difference vigilantly so the world can and will tell us apart from themselves.
We stay so that others may see the strength and grace of serving Christ in the midst of challenging situations, showing that our eyes are focused on the world we’re going to, and not the one we stand upon.
We cannot leave this world until our appointed time. “In the world but not of it” is the battle cry of those fulfilling the Call of Christ – not for our benefit, but for His glory.
davedarwin on March 27, 2009 at 3:14 am
Our world hates Christians because our values differ from the world’s values. Because Christ’s followers don’t joined forces with the world by joining their sin, they are living accusations against the world’s immorality. The world follows agenda, and Satan is the avowed enemy of Jesus and his people.
edsmy on March 27, 2009 at 4:03 am
We have been given God’s Word and we have the Holy Spirit living in us to teach, lead, guide us.
As we continue to live Christ centered lives, we find that family, friends and colleagues who do not believe in Christ do not understand our choices and are sometimes antagonistic towards us.
When we choose not to get drunk, go binge drinking, bar hopping, play the slot machines, buy lottery tickets, abstain from sex outside marriage, listen or participate in gossip and vulgar jokes, we are regarded as spoilsports, wet blankets or are called names worse than this. We find ourselves uninvited to functions and gatherings, ostracized from the popular crowd.
Jesus does not ask God to take us out of this world but to protect us from the evil one. On our part we need to constantly be on our guard by reading the Word, making a conscious choice to apply the Word, to have a teachable heart, not to compromise God’s standards.
As we focus on God and receive His grace to endure the taunts, as we respond with His grace to the difficulties that come our way, as we continue to swim upstream towards Christ, to live by His standards instead of the world’s standards, we live for Jesus in the world but are not part of the world.
We instead become the light that attract others towards godly and right living.