The World Versus the Word

I remember seeing the world through my born-again eyes for the first time when I saw in a booth at an outdoor event a very large snake wrapped around a human in the booth. The snake was an image produced by the Holy Spirit, apparently, for the purpose of visualizing for me what I was leaving--an image that might represent Babylon, about which I really knew very little in the beginning of my new life in Christ. In the Bible, Babylon represents man's pride and rebellion against God's authority. It represents the world--the cosmos--and its defiance against God's truth, his commandments, his holiness, and godly living. There are two different worlds living side by side on Earth and we occupy one or the other. Ephesians 2:1-3 describes the spiritual condition of a person living in unrepentant sin, unconverted, unregenerated--not born again, but possessing the spirit of a person who is "dead to God." "And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:4-9) "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is really beyond our natural ability to understand how this works, but when people turn away from sin and turn to God through faith in Jesus Christ, something happens to the spirit of a person to transform him or her from what they were into what they are now. A new life has begun and they are often referred to as "babes in Christ." They must unlearn everything the world has taught them. The Holy Spirit helps the new believer to live according to the will of God and not according the wisdom of this world that is still under the sway of the devil. Being in fellowship with other believers and renewing their mind in the Bible also help the believer keep his or her relationship with God fresh and keeps him or her empowered by the Holy Spirit to represent Christ "in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain" (Philippians 2:15-16). Our mission in this world is to represent Christ, and to shine the light of his love and the message of his gospel that changes lives and gives us the right to become children of God and live forever at God's right hand. We must never lose sight of this. It is more and more clear the need for the gospel in our world today.