(tm) Day 20
Back to John Seventeen, Devotional
Even so have I also sent them into the world. (John 17:18)
Our calling as a Christian is not to better the living conditions of mankind, neither is it to demonstrate that we are more capable athletes or more successful salesmen. Our calling as a Christian is to bear a true and faithful witness of the Person and will of God in Christ. We command people everywhere to repent, by what we are and by what we do and say.
If people will repent and serve the Lord, their living conditions ordinarily will improve. Or, they may be persecuted and die for their faith. In that instance we have not improved their living conditions at all. We have brought suffering and death to them.
We are not called to bless the world or to make it comfortable. We are called to rebuke the world, to warn it of the Day of Wrath that is on the horizon. When we cease to do this we are false prophets. We are not true friends of the peoples of the world when we refuse to warn them of the terror of the Day of the Lord or to point them to Christ as the only way of salvation.
The world of today is blind. The nations are bound in mind, spirit, soul, and body by Satan. They are destroying themselves while they are groping for truth, for justice, for peace, for joy.
The only source of truth, justice, peace, and joy is the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has sent us into the world so through His Spirit we may continue His work of destroying the works of the devil. It is only through the destruction of the works of the devil that truth, justice, peace, and joy can come into the world.
We saints, as Christ dwells in us, are the light of the world and the only light of the world. The world never will be released into the liberty of the glory of the children of God until the Church has been made one in Christ in the Father.
The horrible condition of the world today is not the fault of the world. The world is being victimized by Satan, and only Christ dwelling in the saints is able to overcome Satan. The churches are not waiting for the world to repent. It is the world that must wait until the churches repent.