The Snare Of Worldliness

It is interesting to notice the particular way in which the Apostle speaks of the world in Gal 6:14. 

Gal 6:14  But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

The world is crucified to him. 

That term is a very comprehensive term and includes a very great deal. 

What does the Apostle mean?

He sets over against this his own clear spiritual position.

Do I seek glory of men?

Do I seek to be well pleasing to men?

No!

The world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

All that sort of thing does not weigh with me.

What weighs with me is not whether my movement is successful...

Whether I am getting a lot of followers...

Whether there are all the manifestations outwardly of success...

What weighs with me is the measure of Christ in those with whom I have to do. 

You see how the world can creep in...

And how worldly we can become almost imperceptibly by taking account of things outwardly...

Of how men will think and talk...

What they will say,,,

The attitude they will take of the measure of our popularity...

The talk of our success...

That is all the world, says the Apostle, the spirit of the world; that is how the world talks.

Those are the values in the eyes of the world, but not in the eyes of the risen Christ.

In the new creation, on the resurrection side of the Cross, one thing alone determines value...and that is the measure of Christ in everything.

Nothing else is of value at all...

However big the thing may be...

However popular it may be...

However men talk favorably of it...

On the resurrection side that does not count a little bit.

What counts is how much of Christ there is. 

You and I in the Cross of the Lord Jesus must come to the place where we are crucified to all those other elements.

Ah, you may be unpopular, and the work be very small...

There may be no applause...

And the world may despise...

But in it all there may be something which is of Christ, and that is the thing upon which our hearts must be set.

The Lord gives us grace for that crucifixion.

There are few things more difficult to bear than being despised...

But He was despised and rejected of men.

What a thing is in God’s sight must be our standard.

That is a resurrection standard.

Now that is the victory of the Cross: “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world”.

~T. Austin Sparks~