The corruption of this world

The corruption of this world

By Rob Roath

  It has occurred to me that I was wrong after all. I spent a great deal of my adult Christian life poking fun at those fellow believers that just had to listen to Christian music all day long. I thought why is it all that bad to listen to this popular song or that. The funny thing is that the answer as it usually does for me came from an unlikely source, my garden.

  In studying Permaculture and Ecology there is the major tenant that the world is always fighting to return itself to its natural form. The term at the moment funnily enough escapes me. However the idea is that nature will get itself back to balance. For us this means one thing…a curse. Yes I know this would seem strange until you think of a time a good deal ago.

  Back in Eden there were the first two rebels to come on the scene to humanity. Before you get to worked up let me advise you that these were not the only rebels. There were many more to appear through the sorted history of mankind. So please do be gentle on these two. They truly only show one thing about God’s creation, they want to be bad.

  Go here is the scene, we have a perfect picture of God communing with man, however things go the way they always do straight south. Adam and Eve decide that indeed that cunning liar Satan is right and indeed they can become God’s as well. Mind you that Lucifer didn’t mention that he hadn’t figured out that little point out yet himself.

  Either way the two decided to see for themselves if indeed they could equal their creator. This happens every generation if you think about it. The new children are certain that their parents are totally cracked and assure themselves that they just have a better way of cracking the nut. As we all know this idea is just about as good as the one Adam and Eve fell for.

  So the end resulted in weeds. Yup you got it. The dreaded enemy of all us growers of food out there.  These little darlings of destruction believe it or not have a purpose in an ecosystem. They grow where they are needed to grow. Mind you the gardener may have another idea to a better place, however they are doing their job. They are the definitive starters of the return to stability. Chaos into order as this may indeed be.

  My point with the weeds is this. Like the good ole Dandelion we have such a curse in us. It is called sin. Our ground is no different than the earth we tiil to grow in. Both are cursed by God.  This world is cursed and taints all things. With this information in mind we return to the initial matter of those blasted Christian music listeners.

  Why indeed does one need to pump ”Jesus is good, Jesus is a really cool dude” into our ears all day long? Well to my surprise an answer did indeed come…weeds. If we do not make certain that our minds are fixed on God we will get ourselves corrupted by the weeds of this world. I seem to remember a parable about this that our Lord taught, don’t you? The cares of the world allowed that believer to get his salvation robbed from him.

   My wife and I also exhibited this difference to my shame. I noticed that we were just on two different wavelengths constantly. It sadly enough made me a little gruff because we were not seeing eye to eye on matters. What was the difference? Well simple as a man I was focusing on money and my gift from God was focusing on her creator. Indeed whatever I was interested in was never what she was. This just reminded me of one thing. How rebellious indeed I am to my Lord.

  I have spent a good deal of my life running from a father that has been trying with all his might to straighten and teach a rebellious tot. My hard life has really been due to the fact that I just will not submit to the teaching of my God. No different than our children that do not want to listen to their parent as well. The book indeed gives us the answers we need. The question is then “do we want to adhere to the truth?”  To that I say no we just do not.

  As humans we just revel in sin. We love it. We lust for the bad payoff that it gives us. If we didn’t we wouldn’t do it. It is just as simple as that. However this is just not the case. We sin due to the fact that we want to. We do not follow wisdom because we do not want to change things in our life. We allow then corruption to happen.

  So indeed the Christian music lovers indeed had it right all along. We must force ourselves to be bathed in the word at all moments in our life. This is nothing more than trying to stave off the corruption that this world is constantly exposing us to. You think it was bad my friends just wait. We have just seen the opening act here in America. You will not be able to look at the television of even a magazine without needing to take a shower to cleanse yourself.

  We must do whatever we can to set out minds, hearts, thoughts, eyes, and every other part of us to God. What hope do we have any other way? Paul I think really did have it right. We must take every thought captive and make sure we are praying without stopping. We then create a couple of essential things for those who really want to follow Christ.

  The first thing is we essentially create a force field around us that is Christ. If all we think about is Godly things then just by the sheer numbers we will outweigh the input of the corrupt world into our lives. We will then be able to ward off the fiery arrows that are constantly being launched our way.

  The second thing is truly the key. We are for lack of a better term tuned in to God’s station. We have a much greater chance to be in the will of God. Why is that the case? Simple we will be able to hear from the Holy Spirit in the ways that he speaks to us. We will then be able to be agile to what God would have us do in this world.

  Is that not after all what we are supposed to be doing anyhow? The bible states that we are to be the ambassadors of Christ to this fallen world. This means that every Christian’s duty is to always be on duty. Just like the ambassadors in this world they always represent the country they stand for in the foreign territory. So we do for Christ.  There is never a time that we do not represent the one that sent us. This is as true in our house as it is on the other side of the door outside. This means something clear if you are to follow the logic out, we have a boss. The ambassador doesn’t do whatever he wants. He is a mouth, hand and feet for the one that had sent him. He carries out the instructions from his home nation.

  It is not our job and never will be to take on the characteristics, customs, and rituals of this foreign soil. We are from heaven folks. We do not need to represent the world we were sent to. We were sent from another place to represent it! We must not lose sight of what we need to do why we are here. We are all the official spokespeople for Jesus of Nazareth, if you like that fact or not. There was never meant to be a professional for this post.

  We must all take up our duty to keep our selves clean, and as uncorrupted as we possibly can be. For those like me we must understand who we are working for. If we believe in God we must also accept him as our boss. With that said we must also accept the paycheck that he has decided to give us. Like the parable of the workers of the field. He chooses our salary. No matter how hard the job is for us to do.

  Some of us ambassadors will have a nice job in a peaceful nation. Some of us will live as peasants in a poor one. This is Christ’s choice alone to choose where he places us and what we are to do while assigned there. Remember friends that there has never been an American Christian. We are not from this county. We are from heaven on a short stent here. We have no idea how long we will stay here until we are reassigned.

  To sum this all up I say this. If you read Hebrews you will see the unending theme of suffering for Christ and righteousness. Have you ever wondered why these two unlikely topics would be put together? It is because of the curse. If we follow Christ we oppose this world and they will hate us for it. We like the bible clearly states will be like a mirror to them showing all who gazes upon us their own sin. Not that we have any glory in ourselves, but the fact still remains as it does.

  If you stand for the Lord and resist the temptations of this world and stay bathed in your Lord you will find your enemy. Just like Satan in Eden sin loves to corrupt others. As I have always said sin is never satisfied. It always wants to become bigger than it once was.

  Resist the enemy friends and he will indeed flee from you. Accept your job as it has been assigned and carry it out till your death. Remember that this world is not the one we look forward to. We should always want to return to the place we long to be…..home.