"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark 8:35).
"Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears." (Acts 20:31).
These, and many other biblical admonishments bespeak of radical transformation and radical ways of living. Venturing out into this evil age in the power of the Spirit with the glory of God in view will seemingly result in detachment and disengagement with a large bulk of the way of the world and would perhaps surpass any cult in perceived bizarreness.
A healthy dose of secularism and being consumed with this world seems to prevent the above from happening in the lives of believers. Now, I don't think this is the result of said believer's necessarily loving their lives or loving this evil age, but rather, there is a perceived unspoken assumption that if we literally live as the bible dictates, we will go practically insane and be functioning in a subjective la-la-land with very little objective justification to continue along such a path of resistance; indeed, all those miracle stories in the bible are nice to read and we desperately try and believe them with the best of our abilities, but my goodness, clearly such things don't happen today, and why that is, well, let's not go there...indeed it's far safer to get lost in some theological issue and continue to play little head games so we don't have to deal with this obvious disconnect. Now, I don't mean to speak for all believers with the above, but I think we must honestly ask ourselves, does the above ring true to an extent in my own life?
"when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).
"Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears." (Acts 20:31).
These, and many other biblical admonishments bespeak of radical transformation and radical ways of living. Venturing out into this evil age in the power of the Spirit with the glory of God in view will seemingly result in detachment and disengagement with a large bulk of the way of the world and would perhaps surpass any cult in perceived bizarreness.
A healthy dose of secularism and being consumed with this world seems to prevent the above from happening in the lives of believers. Now, I don't think this is the result of said believer's necessarily loving their lives or loving this evil age, but rather, there is a perceived unspoken assumption that if we literally live as the bible dictates, we will go practically insane and be functioning in a subjective la-la-land with very little objective justification to continue along such a path of resistance; indeed, all those miracle stories in the bible are nice to read and we desperately try and believe them with the best of our abilities, but my goodness, clearly such things don't happen today, and why that is, well, let's not go there...indeed it's far safer to get lost in some theological issue and continue to play little head games so we don't have to deal with this obvious disconnect. Now, I don't mean to speak for all believers with the above, but I think we must honestly ask ourselves, does the above ring true to an extent in my own life?
"when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).
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