Bondman

Message #129

OUR WORLDLINESS SIMPLY HAS TO GO!! - Part 2

... continued from Part 1 "The Question of our Purity Before Our God"

With the help of God within us we can take the decision to CHANGE OUR ATTITUDE of our current love of the world and all the things it gives us. Brothers and Sisters of mine, IT'S TIME!!! Time for this change. No longer to just HEAR about it. We're to be DOERS of the Word, not just HEARERS – and it's easy to deceive ourselves about this: James Ch 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

CHANGING OUR ATTITUDE

So if we're to cease being God's enemy, let's explore what this change of ATTITUDE involves? It will most likely lead you to a change of life-style - UNLESS you're actually called by God to be a money-maker for His work. But in either case ULTIMATELY YOU WILL HAVE 'SPARE' MONEY TO GIVE TO HIS WORK!

In the case of a life-style change TOWARDS SIMPLER LIVING, by giving up and/or changing our ATTITUDE to all the stuff we LOVE, you WILL ultimately have MONEY TO GIVE towards reaching and evangelising THOSE WHO ARE LOST BECAUSE THEY HAVE NEVER HEARD! If you're unusual and called to be a money-maker, then you will have MUCH money for this task. However, the AMOUNT is NOT the focus here at all: it's our changed ATTITUDE and our MOTIVATION that we must FOCUS on!

EASE AND COMFORT HAVE TO GO

Consider the Western world's LOVE AFFAIR with THE GOOD LIFE and AN EASY LIFE. We want the BEST, right, and WON'T put up with 2nd (or 5th!) best. We want a good home with as much room as we can afford. Our bed MUST be totally comfortable. No old lounge chairs are tolerated. In fact very little that's old will be tolerated. We spend the money and get good stuff. EASE and COMFORT, EASE and COMFORT - how much do you you reckon you spend on this? AND entertainment and recrecreation? Money is getting a little tighter in Australia, as in the U.S., and I read an article in the paper showing a family who reported that they would have to cut their holiday spending from $3,000 this year to $1,000. That's how THE WORLD sees life. THIS IS NOT FOR THOSE OF US who are COMMITTED to JESUS forever!!

THESE MESSAGES ARE ONLY FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO CHANGE

Look, I am NOT going to be carrying on and on about this. Either YOU'LL HAVE 'GOT' WHAT I'M ON ABOUT, or not. It's either go to the Lord to ask Him to help you understand your worldliness and how to change it, or not. Just please, PLEASE, PLEASE don't stay an ENEMY OF GOD by CONFORMING TO THE WORLD AROUND YOU!!

WANT vs NEED

Before leaving this, a final thought as a great GUIDE to this: THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'NEED AND 'WANT'. What does our flesh WANT? – it wants exactly those things we already own – the ones we've ALREADY spent our money on!! That's EXACTLY why we are all living in the richest possible affluence (by world standards - even those of us at the botton of the chain), and SO ARE NO DIFFERENT FROM THE WORLD AROUND US! Which is uttterly TRAGIC!!

OUR CHOICE

So here's what we did: over a period of time, by specific decisions in the Presence of our great and mighty God to Whom we owe EVERYTHING, and BEFORE WHOM we'll soon stand to give ACCOUNT for the whole of our life, our life-style these days is now based firmly on NEED alone.

If it's a life-need we spend the money, ensuring best value for the money too - we're always buying at the bottom of the price chain. If it's NOT an ESSENTIAL it is deleted from thought and discussion. (We've not had a holiday for 19 years and so far we haven't 'died' from this.) I'm sure we all know that what's TOTALLY EASY is SPENDING MONEY on OURSELVES! Which is almost all PURE worldliness! What we're CALLED to do INSTEAD is to be INCREDIBLY WISE with our money and ensure EVERY DOLLAR POSSIBLE remains to go to Him!! (Haven't we 'got' YET that both WE and OUR MONEY are all His anyway?)

FEELING TERRIFIC!

Because our pension income is one-quarter of the average Aussie wage we don't have a lot of extra as you can well imagine. Nonetheless every month some of our money goes to Asia to bring the Gospel to those WHO HAVE NEVER HEARD! I can't possibly describe how fabulous that feels!!

Coming: how to set yourself up to make your life-style change really COUNT FOR GOD!

continued in Part 3 "Introducing the Need" ...

- BM, with his Lady

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