We were not always a set of poor mopes

Back to Man's religion & God's religion

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"If then you were raised together with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated on the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things that are on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God." Colossians 3:1-3

Men's pursuits and pleasures differ as widely as their station or disposition—but a life of selfish gratification reigns and rules in all. Now it is by this death that we die unto the things of time and sense—to all that charms the natural mind of man—to the pleasures and pursuits of life—to that busy, restless world which once held us so fast and firm in its embrace—and whirled us round and round within its giddy dance.

Let us look back. We were not always a set of poor mopes—as the world calls us. We were once as merry and as gay as the merriest and gayest of them. But what were we really and truly, with all our mirth? Dead to God—alive to sin. Dead to everything holy and divine—alive to everything vain and foolish, light and trifling, carnal and sensual—if not exactly vile and abominable.

Our natural life was with all of us a life of gratifying our senses—with some of us, perhaps, chiefly of pleasure and worldly happiness—with others a life of covetousness, or ambition, or self-righteousness. Sin once put forth its intense power and allured us—and we followed like the fool to the stocks. Sin charmed—and we listened to its seductive wiles. Sin held out its bait—and we too greedily, too heedlessly swallowed the hook. "But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14