Worldliness.  We’ve been examining the effects of the world on believers for the past two months.  Now at the end, you may find yourself thinking, “if the world is all around me, how can I keep from indulging in it!?”  This is a good question.  But the answer comes not in the amount of the world with which we allow ourselves to interact, but the way in which we interact with it.  Or, better yet, it depends on how we see the world.

For Paul, the lens through which he saw all things was the “cross of Christ.” In Galatians 6:14, Paul tells us: 

But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

The world, in a sense, was dead to Paul, and Paul considered himself to be dead to the world.  And this death came in Christ’s death on the cross.  Paul did not directly interact with the world anymore – he interacted directly with the cross; and Paul now experienced the world through the cross.  It was as though he was wearing cross-glasses, and everything in the world he saw was interpreted through those glasses.  There was nothing that was not effected  and interpreted by the cross! (please ignore the double negative – for effect only)  

As those who have been given eyes to see by the Holy Spirit, we too have cross-glasses.  We are to experience the world through the cross.  But how do we do that?  Jeff Purswell lists a few ways that we can live out this cross-view:

1. The cross tells you who you are – I don’t need stuff, or people, or clothes, or music to define me.  I’m not grunge, or emo, or country – I am in Christ.  His life and death define me.  
2. The cross interprets the world we inhabit – I no longer see the world or culture for what it once was to me.  The cross tells me what is good and bad now (as defined by what God loves or hates); and what’s more, it allows me to see what God loves in the world, not simply what I love.
3. The cross transforms our view of people – people are no longer a means to an end.  They do not exist to please me or further my initiatives.  They are God’s, and they exist to bring Him glory.  And I exist to love them.
4. The cross gives my life a purpose – my aim in life is no longer to bring me glory or to numb the pain of a hard or boring life.  My sole purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever through the grace shown me at the cross.

So, is this the way you interact with the world.  Are you living crucified to the world, and is the world crucified to you?  This all encompassing worldview is the result of the Spirit’s work in your life.  We must look to God’s work in the cross to reconcile a people to Himself as the means by which the world is reconciled to Him, and as a result, the way those who have been reconciled to Him now see the world.