How Much Do You Love the World?

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I’ll never forget the first time I heard my dad say these words:

The amount of joy in your life, the amount of God’s presence in your life, and the amount of anointing in your life are all in direct proportion to the amount of the world you allow in your life.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that searching our hearts to see if there are areas of the world we’ve allowed to reside is not a one-and-done thing.

It is a lifestyle of allowing God to expose areas of worldly philosophy in our lives.

This week we’re wrapping up the book of Ezra in our Good Morning Girls Bible study.

I will admit, as I read through the book of Ezra, I was disappointed by chapter 9.

The temple has been restored.

Worship and sacrifices have been restored.

The Passover has been celebrated.

And then we get to chapter 9 and read this:

…the leaders came to me, saying, “The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, with respect to the abominations of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and their sons, so that the holy seed is mixed with the peoples of those lands. Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers has been foremost in this trespass.

Ezra 9:1-2

God had specifically said, back in the time of Moses, that God’s people were not to intermarry with the nations around them.

The priests, the ones who knew God’s Law well enough to teach it, were “foremost in this trespass”.

We can see echoes of this in God’s people today.

“Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the One I love” – Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Throughout all of history, since the fall of Adam and Eve, God’s people have battled against their tendency to wander from God and His Law.

It is a battle we will wage until the day we enter heaven.

But it is a battle worth waging.

There are those who call themselves Christian and who excuse their sin because they’re not perfect.

They mistakenly believe that God will look past their sin because they’re human.

While it is true that we are human and not perfect, it is also true that God expects us to live by a certain standard.

Will we stumble and fall?

Yes.

But there is a vast difference between stumbling into sin and walking right into it with our eyes wide open.

John made this very important statement:

Do not love (agapao) the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves (agapao) the world, the love (agape) of the Father is not in him.

1 John 2:15

All three words for love in this verse are the God-kind of love.

When we allow God’s love in us to be distorted and defiled by a love for the world, we lose that love.

That love is no longer in us. John goes on to tell us why:

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.

1 John 2:16

This is why we cannot afford to allow the world and the things in the world to become attractive to us.

It steals God’s love from our hearts.

It’s not that we have a divided heart, it’s that God’s love is no longer there.

We cannot have a divided heart with God.

Light and darkness cannot exist in the same room. Light dispels darkness and darkness cancels out light.

It is scientifically impossible for them to coexist.

So God’s love and the world cannot coexist in the same heart. God’s love dispels the world, but the world will cancel out God’s love.

One of the greatest challenges Christians face today is keeping a love of the world and the things in the world out of their hearts.

So, I must ask you today: How much do you love the world?

Are you like the people in Ezra 9, trying to serve God and entertain the world in your heart at the same time?

There was only one remedy for God’s people in Ezra 10.

Now while Ezra was praying, and while he was confessing, weeping, and bowing down before the house of God, a very large assembly of men, women, and children gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept very bitterly.

Ezra 10:1

They came together and repented.

They put away the wives of the pagan nations.

They once again separated themselves and consecrated themselves to God.

God forgave them of their sin and relationship with His people was restored.

But He wouldn’t tolerate their sin.

He expected them to completely walk away from their sin and vow to never go back to it.

They had to banish their love for the world from their lives.

Is there an area of your heart where you have allowed a love for worldly things to remain?

Like the pagan wives in the time of Ezra, this secret love for the world will defile your life.

The darkness in that area will slowly overtake your whole heart.

We must never allow ourselves to believe that one little area of the world in our hearts is harmless and benign.

It is never benign.

It is always deadly to us spiritually.

I urge you today, to allow the Lord to search your heart and see if there be any wicked way in you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Psalm 139:23-24