IN the World but not OF the World

So Josh and I just celebrated out 5^th Anniversary!  We went on a cruise and it was wonderful.  It was nice to get away for a week and not think about a lot of stuff.  However, in many ways I feel like the Lord is teaching me a lot about being IN the world but not OF the world.

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.    - I John 2:15-17

So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.    - Eph 4:17-19

As Christians, we are called to a higher standard of living.  No doubt, we will fail at times, but we must endure and strive to live a life that glorifies the Lord.  Many times there are not clear answers about what is right and wrong and we just have to depend on conviction of the Holy Spirit; however, many of our answers can be found in scripture if we just look for it.  Sometimes we are just too lazy to read the Bible and see what it has to say, and that’s when we begin to believe that what is common in our culture must be okay because everyone else accepts it as okay.  I can think of two recent examples.

First, when Josh and I were on the cruise we went to a midnight game show where everyone got into groups of 10 people.  Each group was given a number on a card for their group.  The announcer would then say “I’m looking for….” and he would either name an item (like a hairbrush) or an activity (like someone completing 10 pushups).  At that point, once the group had found the item or had a volunteer to complete the activity they would run up on stage and present the group number and the item to collect points.  The group that completed the challenge the quickest received the most points.  This sounded like a lot of fun to us so we joined a group and began to introduce ourselves.  Almost immediately, one of the other ladies turned to Josh and said, “Since your one of the only guys in our group, you know you’ll have to take off your pants right?”   WHAT?  We were both baffled.  After about 3 minutes, every person in the group had tried to persuade Josh to “Take one for the team”, or “Loosen up, you’re on vacation.” So we left.  What a bummer.  Come to find out (we heard about it the next day), the last challenge of the game was to send one male and one female from each group to the announcer and they had to entirely switch wardrobes.  It just baffles me that about 100 people got completely naked on a stage and had no reservations about it at all. As Christians, we can live in the world and love people for Jesus, but we must not take part in activities that would not honor the Lord.

Another recent example comes from our most recent visit to the doctor.  Josh and I have done some research about In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).  We now understand exactly what it is, how it works, the history of the science experiments behind it, the costs, etc.  I plan to write another blog about this sometime soon; however, it’s way too much to go into right now.  Ultimately, we decided that this was definitely not the next step for us.  When we returned from our cruise we met with our doctor to discuss other possible fertility options.  He immediately brought up IVF and began going over the success statistics.  We kindly interrupted him and told him that because of our beliefs we would not be interested in this option.  He automatically assumed that we were Catholic and began to tell us how many priests now are agreeing that IVF is okay because having a family is so important.  After explaining to him that we were not Catholic then he proceeded to explain why other denominations now agree with IVF.  This surprised me a little more.  You see, I can’t imagine worshiping God, the author of creation and the giver of life, while standing beside someone who I know feels no guilt to practice selective reduction (also called selective termination or abortion) when women become pregnant with multiple embryos.  Again, we explained to him that in our research we have found that IVF doesn’t fix a problem in the body, but it fixes a desire to be a parent.  As Christians, we should have one primary desire, and that’s to honor the Lord.  Nothing (even the desire to have children) should come before honoring the Lord.  Thankfully, our doctor then changed subjects and we discussed alternative options.

I share all of this to plead with my fellow brothers and sisters to research common practices in our culture.  Even if everyone else (including other Christians) say it’s okay, the Bible may not.  Listen to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, pray for discernment, and seek out wise counsel from mature fellow believers.  Ultimately, we will be held accountable for decisions we make.  Do not choose poorly because of ignorance.