Now more than ever

The church I attended in my youth did its best to warn me against " worldliness. " It insisted that being a Christian required us to turn away from the values and pleasures of this world and to follow Christ instead. " The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever " (I John 2:17). The fact that we don't hear that message today is a tragedy because we need it now more than ever. And we need it in a more basic sense. Worldliness doesn't concern recreation and entertainment nearly so much as values, attitudes and ways of thinking which leave God out. Worldliness considers God unimportant and of no consequence either in our thinking or in our practices. Today more than ever the values of a godless culture (i.e., the world) saturate every segment of society and fill every moment of time. The old battery-operated radios of my youth have given birth to a conquering army of electronic media. The first generation of television, video recorders, and wireless telephones has quickly spawned new monstrosities — computers interact with telephones, printers, and laser disks — technology constantly impacting our lives. In theory, this technology can be used for good. In practice it almost always imposes alien values on God's people, cultivating a self-satisfying focus on this material world. It banishes God from daily life into the privacy of our churches. And its not-so-subtle influence entices us into non-Christian thinking. Like the pigs in George Orwell's book Animal Farm who begin to look and act like human beings without realizing it, we unsuspectingly look increasingly like our own godless generation. Now more than ever we need to return to our spiritual roots. We need to recognize how much society has perverted our attitudes and values. And we need to repent of our indifference to the things of eternity. And we need to seek with all our hearts God's kingdom and righteousness (Matt. 6:33). Only by returning to God's Word can we do this. We must turn our back and shut our ears to the modern world-enticing propaganda. Amidst life's busy din, we must carve out for ourselves a " quiet time " to be alone with God and his Word. We must no longer permit secularism to brainwash us into worldliness. Rather we must refocus our minds upon the words of …