Today’s Daily Light:

1 John 2:15-17 John wrote “Do not love the world or anything in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.  The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 

2:24 “See that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you.  If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father.  And this is what he promised us – eternal life.”

1 John 5:18-19  John wrote “We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one“. 

2 Corinthians 4:4, Paul wrote “The god (Satan) of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, ‘so that’ they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”

Romans 12:2, Paul wrote “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

The ‘world’, the unredeemed world, the fallen world, is under the power of the evil one.  This ‘world’ system is the realm and sphere of darkness wherein evil operates.  The ruler of this fallen world system has the power to ‘blind’ the minds of those that are not redeemed.

But ‘we’ who are redeemed, do not legally belong to this fallen world system…we are children of God and belong to the Kingdom of God.   The king of this temporary present age is not our king and his time of illusion and darkness will come to a sure end.   We belong to a King and a Kingdom that are eternal, imperishable, unshakeable, and there will be no end of our Kings eternal kingdom.

Father….thank you for choosing us to be yours and for the gift of eternal life.   I pray that through the eyes of your Spirit…we can more clearly see the temporary world system and its influence and power on us.   I am aware of the desire I have for comfort and for things and so much of the ideas and view I have on ‘that’ come from the worlds view of having and consuming.  I thank you that I do not desire the obvious bad stuff and things from the dark side, but I am aware of how I ‘too-much’ like my comfort and my ‘stuff’ and I realize that even those these ‘things’ are not evil in themselves…that they can distract me from the eternal things that are Yours.   The world system causes us to ‘desire-to-acquire’.  I am soo guilty of liking my toys too much.   I pray for balance in how to negotiate living in this temporary world system as a child of an eternal kingdom.   Help me to not show love for my stuff more than I show love for You and what you love.  And as Jesus prayed in what we call the Lord’s Prayer…. ‘And deliver us from evil’.

Addendum:  At this time in my life, I find that God is retooling my understanding, thinking, and view as relates to my imbalance in my love for God and my love for the world.   I am reading a lot these days and I ask you to read the article in the link below written by John Piper.   Then, if you are so motivated, pick another day and time and go to his website and in the ‘search’ box, type in ‘Love Not the World’.

http://www.desiringgod.org/messages/do-not-be-conformed-to-this-world