” Forsaking The World.”
This is a
“Clarion Call”
“Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy mountain.”(Joel 2:1)
It’s time for all people to awaken from their slumber.
This is a time to see clearly the signs of the times.
No.3 JudeoChristianClarion.Com “Forsaking the World”
Yeshua told the crowd this in His day.
Luke 14:25-27 “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Yeshua knew that it was going to take forsaking the world to be His disciple. He knew the power the world had over people. He knew unless you make a complete forsaking of the world that you would not pick up the yoke of the kingdom to follow Him. He knew that you would not walk in His footsteps and that is what it was going to take to be His disciple.
The Apostle John saw it in his day when he wrote in
1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
James saw in his day the importance of forsaking the world and the effect that the world had on people. He writes in
James 4:1-10, “ What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is the source not your pleasures that wage war in your body’s parts? You lust and do not have, so you commit murder. And you are envious and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives, so that you may spend what you request on your pleasures. You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says to no purpose, “He jealously desires the Spirit whom He has made to dwell in us”? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Submit therefore to God. But resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come close to God and He will come close to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable, and mourn, and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning, and your joy into gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
Paul knew it and he did something about it as
Philippians 3 :7-11 tells us, “But whatever things were gain to me, these things I have counted as loss because of Messiah. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Messiah Yeshua my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them mere rubbish, so that I may gain Messiah and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Messiah , the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; if somehow I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Today I ask you, where are your thoughts? Are they on God? Do you meditate on His Word day and night? Is His Word your daily bread? Or are you only thinking about how you can get ahead or what you want to buy to satisfy your wants? Do you have a godly worldview of life, or do you have a worldly world view of life? These things are an indication of where your heart is.
Yeshua tells us in Matthew 6: 19-24, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”
“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
Today, are you trying to serve two masters? Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day that you need to forsake the world, before you can no longer let go. The longer you have a foot in the world, the harder it is for you to forsake it.
Yeshua knew it, and Paul knew it, and an endless number of believers have known it over the centuries.
Yeshua tells a couple of parables about the kingdom in Matthew 13:44-46,
“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells everything that he has, and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold everything that he had and bought it.”
Our treasure must be in heaven, our citizenship is not of this world but in heaven. If Yeshua is our king, then we must be citizens of His kingdom. If we find ourselves advancing our little kingdom, then we are not citizens of Yeshua’s kingdom, but our own. We can not serve two masters, nor can we be citizens of two kingdoms.
Today is the day that we must decide who it is that we live for, ourselves or our King Yeshua. When the King returns what will He find? Will He find you a faithful servant working His fields or will He find you off attending some other field? Now is the time to forsake the world and to live for the Kingdom of God.
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