In not Of

It's one of those areas that are extremely complicated to figure out...being in the world but not of the world.

I love reading history, and Church History is particularly interesting to me. I was reading in a church history book recently about the rise of monastatism in the early post-apostolic church, and the attempts early Christians made at living a holy life by escaping from the world. I could relate. Some days I wish I could do that, you know?

On Sunday, we had a lesson in our Sunday school class, and this topic was among those discussed, and an interesting point was made, and this is it: we can try to seclude ourselves away from the "evil" of this present world through isolating ourselves, but we can never really flee from sin, since we are all sinners, and sin in in our hearts. Our hungering and thirsting after righteousness (Matthew 5:6) is supposed to be about seeking God not running from life....and just a few verses later (v. 13-14) Jesus reminds us that we are the salt of the earth and light of the world.

Living in the world but not of the world can be even more complicated when you have children. I never would have imagined that "momma grizzly bear" response that would rise up in me when I felt my babies were in danger! Maybe that is the thing that took me most by surprise about being a mom...the overwhelming feeling that I'd do anything to protect my children. As a Christian mom, part of that is protecting them from bad influences in their formative years, and I think that topic has been done to death....but the other part is wisely teaching them how to be in not of too, as they navigate the world around them.

The thing is, there is no other way to really learn or teach that other than being on our knees and in the Word. God didn't issue us some sort of neat checklist (in bulleted format), but He put His Spirit in us, and gave us His Word to search out His principles....bringing us back to hungering and thirsting after His righteousness, and being filled. (Matthew 5:6)