Perilous Pursuits by Joseph Stowell

Author:Joseph Stowell [Stowell, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8024-7812-2
Publisher: Moody Publishers

TWO WORLDS

To restructure our lives based on our redemption, we must realize that we live in two worlds. The first is the world that the New Testament calls the cosmos. This is the unredeemed world of humanity, ruled and manipulated by Satan for the advance of his destructive cause and the shaming and diminishing of the glory of our Creator. All of us, redeemed and unredeemed, live in this world. It has its own values, standards, expectations, and patterns of response. We were all born into this world and live as its citizens by its rules and regulations.

But at redemption, our citizenship was transferred to a completely different world with a distinct system of values, standards, expectations, and patterns of response. This is what the New Testament calls the kingdom of Christ, which Paul described in Colossians 1:13–14. We are now members of this kingdom, which is managed by Christ to advance the glory of God and to enrich eternity. And although we are still in the world, we are called to live according to the realities of Christ's kingdom.

Paul wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The apostle instructed us to surrender fully to God as an act of worship, and then outlined the process of transition from the old world order to the kingdom way of living: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:2).

In fact, the majority of the New Testament's exhortations deal with the importance of living accurately as kingdom citizens in this fallen, dark world. Scripture never allows us to live out our redemption by the rules of the old, soon-to-be-judged world order of Satan.

In John 17:15–17, Christ prayed not that His father would take us out of the world, but set us apart in the world by our commitment to the truth. Paul reminded us that we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20). The use of the term citizen is intended to remind us that we live by the standards of the kingdom to which we belong, the kingdom of Christ, though we still live in the domain of darkness as “aliens and strangers.” What else could we be in a world that is programmed to thwart God's purposes in our lives?

In calling us to live out our newness, Christ said, “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:16–17). He said this in response to a question by John the Baptist's disciples, who wondered why Christ's disciples did not fast like they did.

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