Abraham's call was a call of separation from the ties of this natural world. You cannot be blessed by God if you try to live in the world and in God's system at the same time. God's system and the world's system are in direct opposition to one another. They do not agree. If they did, there would be no need for preaching.
We would already be living God's way naturally. But the natural world does not live
God's way.
The natural world tells us, "There's a big headache out there waiting for you!" That's not what God says in His Word. God says, "Jesus bore your big headaches." That's a Savelle paraphrase of 1 Peter 2:24: "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed."
The world does not say you are healed. On the contrary. If you listen to the television, you will soon discover that you're either sick or about to get sick.
"As long as there are winters and husbands," the television pronounces, "there are colds!" And then they set in to sell you something for the cold they are trying their best to talk you into.
Then there's this one: "How do you spell relief?" I always want to jump up and shout, "J-E-S-U-S!" I'll be so glad when Christians get some 24-hour-a-day Word TV stations to put out the Gospel. Then we can start doing our own “commercials" for the Lord, picking up where the world leaves off: “How do you spell relief? J-E-S-U-S!”
It should be obvious to anyone with any spiritual perception at all that the world and God do not agree. The world says, “Watch out!
There's a famine in the land. Hard times are coming. Depression is upon us. Recession is here. Hold on to what you've got. Don't let it get away from you. Things are going to get worse!" But God says, "Give, and it shall be given unto you" (Luke 6:38).
My friend, it is time we get both feet out of the world and into God's Word. Let's quit hanging onto the world's way, using it as an alternative in case the Word doesn't work.
God called Abraham and said, "Leave your home country, your relatives, and your father's house. Go to a land which I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation." Abraham's call demanded absolute confidence in and obedience to the Word of God. It was a call of separation from the ties of the natural world.
We are to walk in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham. His call expresses to us the starting point of the life of faith, and the first requirement of that life of faith is separation from the world.
The Apostle Paul says, “Be not conformed to
this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). We have to separate ourselves from the World. We have to get rid of the world's attitude about life and take on God's attitude. Second Corinthians 6:17 tells us to “come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.” Verse 14 says, “What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?”
You can't keep mingling in the world's ways and expect to be blessed of God. You have to separate yourself from the ties of the world.
Get rid of the world's attitude. Quit hanging on to what the world taught you. Decide once and for all that you are going God's way.
The Church does not need to be worldly.
We should not have the same passions and desires that the world has. I don't have that nature anymore. I am a new creation. My desire should have changed. If I catch myself still craving the things that the world craves, then I'd better go spend some time with God. I need to separate myself from the ties of this world.
Now, I didn't say that you're not supposed to have the material necessities of life. And Jesus didn't say that either. In fact, He said that
if you will seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, all these things will be added unto you. The things He was talking about were food, clothing, and shelter—material things.
God wants you to have the material things of life. God doesn't want you to live below the world. He wants you to be more prosperous than the world. In fact, He doesn't even want you to be less fashionable than the world. If anything, He wants you more fashionable!
Where did we ever get the idea that God has no taste, no eye for beauty?
Some people are still hung up on whether a Christian woman should wear earrings and lipstick. “Did you see Brother Savelle's wife on that platform this morning? Did you see that lipstick on her lips? She can't be holy and wear that stuff!"
It doesn't make any difference if a woman comes to church wearing Lucite house paint on her face! That's between her and God. My wife's lipstick has never stopped the anointing in our meetings.
When God says we are to separate ourselves from the world, He is not talking
about going around in sackcloth and ashes. He is not opposed to our having nice things. What God is opposed to is our following after the lust of this world, having the same ungodly desires that the world has. If your ambition and goal in life is to be rich, then you haven't separated yourself from the world. Your motivation and life's ambition should be to know God more intimately than any other personality in this universe. If it is, then He will see that you prosper every day and that your years are filled with pleasure.