When We Get the WORD IN, We Can Keep the WORLD OUT

You don’t even need to be fluent in Christianese, to be familiar with the phrase, “be in the world but not of it.” What does that even mean? Is it Biblical? And if so, how in the world do we live it out?

Let’s start with this passage from John 17: 14-19, Jesus’ words, a beautiful prayer to His Father, a plea He passionately poured out for His disciples on the eve of his crucifixion:

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.”

Jesus was willing to GIVE His life so we could HAVE life, eternally with Him and abundantly through Him. God’s WORD became FLESH to dwell among us for 33 years IN this WORLD. And when He both obediently and willingly left this world, He left His WORD with us. His WORD became flesh through Jesus, and it is still ALIVE and ACTIVE through the power of the Holy Spirit today.

His WORD. Our guide. Our compass. Our True North. When the world attempts to lead us astray. The Truth of His Word MUST lead the Way.

“Thomas said to him, ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?’ Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.’” ~ John‬ ‭14:5-7‬

Yes, we may have to live IN this WORLD, but its ideologies and mixed up theologies don’t have to make their way INTO our HEART.

When we get INTO the WORD, the WORD can get INTO us and change us from the inside out.

The TRUTH of the WORD guards our hearts and protects our minds from LIES of the WORLD.

Jesus said it best (and I am so grateful His words are timeless and true, alive and active), “Sanctify in the truth. Your word is truth.”

And that, my friends, is the GOSPEL TRUTH.

When we get the WORD IN, we can keep the WORLD OUT.