Lord, Teach Us To Pray! Part 36

Prayers of Intercession continued...

1 John 2:15-17, “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 lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

Nobody gets a special dispensation! You don’t get a pass if you went to seminary, preached the gospel, sang in the choir or served as an usher. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. It doesn’t matter how often we warm a pew, it doesn’t matter how giving we are to charity, it doesn’t matter how many fish stickers we have on our back bumper. If the love of the world is still in us the love of the Father is not.

In our ongoing attempt to pacify and placate the world, we’ve sugarcoated the word of God to such an extent that all the lines of delineation have been blurred or erased altogether. We find ourselves making excuses for God, and for His word, apologizing for the apparent lack of broadmindedness, insisting that although the Bible says a certain thing, it’s not really what God meant.

It’s pretty clear to me! There really isn’t any way we can spin this scripture passage. There really isn’t any way we can justify the morally ambiguous, or those whose fondness for the world supersedes their love for the things of God. ‘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.’

There comes a point in every man’s searching wherein he must choose whether he will believe the easy thing, the palatable thing, the sugarcoated thing, or the truth. Yes, more often than not the truth and the comfortable thing will be in diametrical opposition to each other.

If we choose the path of least resistance, if we choose to believe that God has changed and His word is no longer relevant, that He has done away with His standard and no longer requires separation from the world, no matter how enchanting the words, no matter how eloquent the presentation, we still have the Bible to contend with.

Granted, some so-called congregations, have done away with the Bible altogether as it was a constant reminder that they were teaching heresy, but if you’re reading this, chances are you’re searching for the truth, and if you’re searching for the truth, then the Bible must be the final authority in regards to what you believe.

The world and the lust of the world are passing away. Things that men put their faith and trust in, at the time seemingly unshakable, have crumbled into the dust, and all that is left to remind anyone that something once stood there is rubble and decay. The world is passing away before our eyes, yet even those within the house of God continue to cling to it with death grips, hoping to salvage what remains.

We are attempting to fix what has been broken beyond repair, rather than doing the will of God that we might abide. He who does the will of God abides forever. To abide, is to wait for, to endure without yielding, to bear patiently, to remain stable or fixed in a state, or to continue in a place. He who does the will of God has permanence, he remains and continues bearing patiently and enduring without yielding.

If we desire to abide, if we desire to have permanence, and not pass away as the world and its lusts are, then we must do the will of God.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-8, “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.”

God called us to holiness. Now there’s an unpopular truth. We don’t want to hear about abstaining, or possessing our own vessels in sanctification and honor anymore, because that would mean repenting of those pet sins we cling to so dearly.

We no longer like to hear about Christ returning for a spotless bride, because there’s far more leeway in hearing that He will take us to heaven on a bed of roses just as we are.

If we are preaching and teaching something antithetical to scripture, can we still call ourselves ambassadors of Christ and servants of the cross?

This isn’t a debate. There is no debate. ‘He who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.’

I’m sick and tired of the back and forth between seemingly intelligent people, who attempt to find loopholes in the Bible, as though they were debating tax law rather than the eternal residence of their immortal soul.

It is because our hearts are still tethered to the world and the things of the world that we are so adamant about finding justification for sin, immorality, and uncleanness.

We leave behind the life we lived before we came to the knowledge of His grace. We leave behind the immorality we practiced once we come to the knowledge of His love. We are no longer what we once were. We are born again into Him, dead to the flesh, dead to the sins which once held us captive, and alive in Christ Jesus our Lord.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.