L. E. Maxwell lists a few of the “subtle forms of worldliness which lure us to the rocks, and wreck our Christian testimony…
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The unwarranted time we can spend over some trifling hobby instead of redeeming the time [Ephesians 5:16]. We call it relaxation, but there may be much worldliness in it.
- The ease with which we can sit in slippered feet noting the worlds news when we might be giving the good news to lost men. We refuse to endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ [2Timothy 2:3]. Our soft little world has us.
- The prevalent lust for late night lunching and vainglorious witticismscheating ourselves of the time needed for Gods fellowship in the Word and prayer next morning. Then we go out ungirt and stripped of our armor to meet the world at largeall because of our own secret inner worldliness.
- The great place we give to likes, dislikes, and personal choices.
- How much we are regulated by public opinion, perhaps religious opinion, rather than scriptural principle.
- How easily we are content to allow this or that thing, be it ever so innocent or lovely, to becloud the world to come.
- How little we count it a privilege to suffer shame for His name.
- What expectations we have of great contentment and satisfaction from certain earthly comforts. How fond we are of nice things and luxuries, and how unwilling to forego them for the sake of sending the gospel to the heathen.
