Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt - Not of This World

Nuggets from An Urgent Call to a Serious Faith by Dave Hunt – Not of This World

The orientation of Paul and the Colossian church away from the earth toward heaven was not merely a “mental attitude” they had adopted without any basis in reality. It was not wishful “positive thinking” but truth that would change their lives. Through Christ’s cross Christians have been crucified to the world and the world has been crucified to them, as Paul so firmly declared (Galatians:6:14But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
See All...). A man who has just been taken down, dead, from a cross has no interest in this world nor does it have any claims upon him. The person crucified and those who crucified him have nothing further to do with each other. So it is with the Christian and the world through the cross of Christ. The vicious hatred this world has for Christ, and its irreconcilable animosity against all that He stands for, have been fully exposed in its rejection and crucifixion of our Lord. Christ declared that the world would hate and persecute us as it had Him (John:15:18-20 [18] If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. [19] If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. [20] Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
See All...; 16:2; 17:14). By His cross we have been cut off from this world just as surely as He has been.

Death, however, did not end it all. Christ rose triumphant from the grave and ascended to the right hand of the Father in heaven. Moreover, He is coming again in power and glory to judge and take vengeance upon those who have rejected Him – and we, who have identified ourselves with Him in His rejection and death, will participate in His triumph and glory. Nor is that Second Coming so far in the future that it has no practical meaning for us now. On the contrary, the rapture (which precedes the Second Coming) could occur today. The glorious fulfillment of the hope that the gospel has instilled within our hearts could burst upon us at any moment! This fact causes eternity to invade the present and makes the Christian no longer of this world.