Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Many sincere Christians have a terrible time wrestling with the temptation to love the world. We are commanded, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15). Quite straightforward! Further, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom.12:2). And Jesus prayed for us to be kept from the evil that is in the world (John 17:15).
But how do we overcome this temptation? By super-will power? If the attractions of the world are tugging at your heart, it is quite possible that you have never understood what Paul says is "the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:5, 14). "I have been crucified with Christ," he says (2:20).
Jesus wanted His disciples to "watch" with Him "one hour," but they were too sleepy to stay awake (Matt. 26:40). It will take you an hour to be "crucified" with Christ; you are on your knees, every other "voice" hushed, you are absorbing Psalm 22 or Psalm 69, or the story in the Gospels; you have turned away from videos and movies that distort the cross; you let the Word speak to you.
You are now "seeing" things far more vividly than any movie. You see yourself crucified with Jesus. Paul says what you "see" on your knees has power to change you forever. "God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal. 6:14). It's truth: once you've "seen" that cross as in the Word, the world's attractions lose their appeal for you.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 15, 2005.
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