Matt 18:7 KJV
Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!
How horrible it will be for the world because it causes people to lose their faith. Situations that cause people to lose their faith will arise. How horrible it will be for the person who causes someone to lose his faith! Matt 18:7 GOD’S WORD
The world we live in, because of sin, is programmed to lead people astray; to tempt in such a way that a person who is holding to truth will abandon it for a lie; to make one fall or stumble from the faith; to make one sin. Anything in the world could be used to achieve this aim. In fact all that is in the world has an objective, to make one not to hold to the faith that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the way we must understand the world we live in. The world and the things in it are a snare, a trap on the path of the believer and he must beware. Any believer who lives without this consciousness is setting himself for a fall.
The Lord further clarified this when He said, “…sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” In order words, each day is filled, programmed, scheduled to accomplish much evil that one cannot be bothered about the next day. One’s primary concern for each day lived is how to overcome; to walk in victory; to walk in such a way that God will be pleased with one at the end of the day. This again is the perspective one must hold about living in the world, otherwise, the trap of evil set for our feet will snap because we did not live carefully and consciously of the dangers around us.
As we observe the trend in the world, we will notice that so many things are being promoted to cause distractions for us. Our minds are so preoccupied that to sustain a time of attention on the things of the Spirit is very difficult. Silence is becoming history; perhaps only found in the grave. We are more busy today than ever; work, entertainment, sports, church activities (that don’t increase love and brotherliness), market (stock market), more money making concerns etc. We are bombarded from every direction to what end? It is all so that we don’t pay attention to what is most important- our souls’ need: intimacy with God.
Let us understand and let it sink into your spirit that the world is not friendly with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Anyone who holds faith cannot be a friend of the world; he is an alien in the world and it has only one plan for such a person; to convert or destroy. It is only when this is clear in our spirit that we may proceed to look at how we can deal with the sin tendencies in us. We will not appreciate the method of dealing with sin when we do not magnify the gain or value of faith. Someone who has not valued his faith and its eternal consequence will not understand why the Lord went so far as to demand such a ‘cruel’ thing in dealing with the flesh and its lusts.
“If your hand or your foot causes you to lose your faith, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life disabled or injured than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into everlasting fire. Matt 18:8-9 GOD’S WORD
The pain of losing a hand, a foot or an eye cannot compare with that of spending eternity in hell.
The agony of living in hell is worse than the temporal suffering incurred because of losing something that makes us to sin against God in the world. The latter suffering will end but the former will never end. ‘The fire is not quenched and the worms do not die…’ says the Lord, the one who really knows all things. If a man does not deny himself the pleasures of sin in the world, he has gained the world, but what shall it profit him if he loses his soul in hell? This is the question that our hearts must be directed to again and again. May God open our eyes.
The Lord says we must deny ourselves in order to deal with sinful tendencies in us and temptations that come to us. To deny oneself could be painful but it is gainful. It is the way to gaining eternity with God. Every time we are being tempted to sin and give up our faith, the only way is to deny ourselves by the help of the Spirit.“…If you through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live Rom 8:13.” In other words, we must constantly resist sin, saying NO to it. Since in the world temptations will always come, we also must also not get tired of saying no to sin. That I succeeded yesterday is not enough, I must continue to win in the battle of resisting the allurements of sin. The grace of God is able to help us, but this is the mind-set we must carry as strangers and pilgrims in the world.
When in the end we arrive at the shores of Heaven, what joy, what rest our souls shall find. Then we shall sing the song of the victorious, for then, all that awaits in our future is the glory of God alone. May you strive through denying of self to be there.