Turning your back on the world

There is a worship song that my church has been singing lately.  A portion of the song says “The cross before me, the world behind me.  No turning back.”

This morning while making my coffee that part of the song was stuck in my head for some reason.  I don’t even like the song so it was odd that it would be stuck in my head.  I sung that part of the song out and then thought “that’s wrong.”

I think there are a lot of songs with a similar message.  Stay with God, turn towards the cross, look to Jesus, but stay away from, out of, don’t go near, turn your back on the world.

While the songwriter is not present to define what they meant by “the world”, I will judge them strictly for the sake of this blog.

Why are Christians so afraid of the world?  You know we live in the world, right?  It’s like there is some evil force that we have no power of, but apparently the world has something enticing to offer most Christians because they keep having to remind themselves to look at the cross and not to turn their eyes to left or the right for fear of embracing the world.

I cannot see Peter, Paul, John, Luke, Timothy, or any of the other disciples, apostles, teacher, preachers, or prophets of the New Testament holding the same opinion.

See, most Christians today are afraid that of they spend more of their time in “the world” than they do in the Church they will somehow morph into sinners.  I would imagine if Paul or Peter spent more time inside the church than they did outside, in the world, ministering to the needy and the hurt and the confused and the politician, they would feel guilty.

Don’t misunderstand what I am saying.  Obviously I understand the importance of keeping our focus on Jesus and having the relationship that we do with Him.  But if we are so ignorant as to assume we should turn our backs to the world we may have some serious issues.

How can we fulfill the great commission if all we do is keep our eyes on the cross and our back continually to the world?  Should we just wait for the lost and hurting to walk in front of our path in order for us to see them and reach them?

No, we should turn towards the world and forge forward towards a goal of bringing love and healing to a lost and dying world.

So please, enough with the songs and sermons about how bad the world is.  Enough with turning your backs on the world that needs you more than the church does. 

- Cheers.