Worldliness

1Jo 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

1Jo 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Does this passage tell us to hate this life and everything in it? ... Is it referring to the earth itself? ... Does it say we are to despise all of God’s creation? Nothing in God’s creation, other than man is bent on evil. When you walk through the woods, everything points to the beauty and purity of God. Why would he want us to hate any of His creation? Since my first introduction to the holiness church, worldliness has always been to dress in such a way as to draw attention to ones self. And this is one way to describe it. But I feel we don’t often hear of the other areas that come under the umbrella of this term. A person can appear to be humble and dress modestly, and still be worldly. How?

WORLDLINESS ... [from world.] A predominant passion for obtaining the good things of this life; covetousness; addictedness to gain and temporal enjoyments.

Worldliness comes in different forms. I would like to attempt to illustrate them to you.

In 1995 I worked in maint., and my wife was a supervisor over seven production lines. Both positions offered unlimited overtime. Sixty or seventy hour weeks became common for both of us. It was as if we were competing to see who could make more. We bought brand new vehicles with cash, and bought a home we never imagined we could afford, and were always buying new clothes and going on expensive vacations. We were looking for happiness and security. Did we find it? No! We grew apart, and when we were together, we were bickering over foolish differences. A perfect example of this is found in the city of Richmond, Indiana, at the Ford Motor Company assembly plant. When you hire in you agree to work twelve-hour days seven days a week minimum. In fact maintenance was on call. It’s true that the average worker grosses eighty thousand a year plus, maintenance could put another twenty on top of that. They usually buy a new vehicle at least every year. Normally there is a pontoon boat, or a twenty thousand-dollar bass-boat in the driveway. And there is also a really nice camper in the yard. Does this bring happiness? We had a man leave Ford and come back to our factory. Why? His wife had left him cause she was tired of living alone. She took everything he had worked so hard to accumulate, and socked him with a very large child support payment. Based on what he was making.

John Wesley taught his people to work as much as you can, save as much as you can, then give as much as you can.

Mt 16:26 ... For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

WORLDLY ... Devoted to this life and its enjoyments; bent on gain; as a worldly man; a worldly mind.

This is another example: Another form of worldliness is what I refer as social climbers. This person only associates on a personal level with people who can help to elevate them to the level they think they belong. They attach themselves to successful people in order to gain some status in society. With each new contact they take on a new personality. Which changes as they come in contact with different influential individuals. These people change so much they don’t really know who they are or what they really like. And know one else does either. Does this type of behavior really bring these people happiness? What usually occurs is the influential people use them for a particular purpose then discard them. As they meet new influential people their name starts to drift around as climbers, and soon they are avoided.

Another one that comes to mind is the first one mentioned. That is the person who lives to be noticed. They dress to be noticed, they love to hear themselves talk, they love to give people their opinion on everything, even if they have no idea what it is they are talking about. Their goal in life is to be important. Are these people happy? There is a lady my wife and I know who is to me the epitome of this. She is lonely, as no one is willing to a long-term relation with her because she does all the talking. She doesn’t care about anyone else’s opinion or concerns, she is the only one with needs. She asked my wife one day why she was having relational problems, and Sue told her the truth. This just offended her and she didn’t want to hear anymore.