Of Whom the World Is Not Worthy

(John 17:5, Heb 11:36-40, Heb.12:1-3, John 15:18)

Jesus was never at home in this world.  He was a foreigner in this place.  He wanted to be with His Father sharing that glory that He knew before the world was.  He is the author and finisher of faith.  So we are encouraged to fix our eyes on Jesus, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross and everything that went on before it.  His life here culminated in the cross where He said, “It is finished.”  More than His work in this world was completed.  So much more was done.  Sin was put to death.  Death was overcome and destroyed,  We read that He destroyed him who had the power of death.  We are no longer under a sentence of death but have a life that will never die.  That life is Christ Himself which brings us to, and keeps us, in the presence of God.  It is for us to continue on in faith no matter what we may face.

Faith is believing and trusting.  It is substance.  It is not wishful thinking.  It is right thinking, based on right believing.  Our thoughts and beliefs cannot be separated.  We must remember that the flesh, ourselves apart for God, resists the Spirit, and vice versa.  We want our own way.  We want every good thing but can be deceived.  The Lord works by His Spirit to transform us and free us from every false notion.  He opens our eyes to see heavenly realities.  Without a vision, a vision of the Lord, we get off track.  This vision is what Paul prayed for, a spirit of wisdom and revelation, an ongoing experiential knowledge of the Lord Jesus.  Faith is the evidence, a conviction of truth, of things not seen by the natural eye.

Everything we see can oppose this.  When we have spiritual eyes to see, we see God in all that our natural eyes see.  Sometimes we can be fooled by and through those distractions our spiritual eyesight is refined.  The Bible is full of examples of this.  Samuel is sent to anoint a son of Jesse and learns his own lesson that God is looking at the heart.  When David shows up, Samuel, trained in knowing the Lord, knows that David is the one.  Saul is blinded on the road to Damascus and remains so for three days.  That is the length of time Jesus was in the grave.  Jesus was fully convincing Saul of the truth in those three days.  Now that was the hand of God.  It was the same hand that covered Moses from seeing the full glory of God as He passed by.  His ways are higher than our ways and always bring a glorious result.

Saul’s natural sight was restored but the spiritual insights he began to receive while blind provided the foundation for the wisdom written in his letters.  He began his process of transformation and the Spirit’s work in conforming him to the image of Christ.  Like Paul, those mentioned in Hebrews 11 are men and women who believed God  for heavenly interventions at the cost of things held dear.  Some lost their lives to receive a greater reward.  You may have heard the words of Jim Elliot.  “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”  Jim was killed as he was bringing the gospel to unreached people.

So in the mix of these stories and people of faith, we have this thought, “of whom the world was not worthy.”  The world cannot receive the Spirit, Jesus said.  The world runs on the desires of unfaithful men and women.  They do not believe God.  They do not want God.  God has extended His love to them and they have refused.  God would lead them to repentance and they will not.  In this, we do not only consider leaders whether elected ones or those over businesses, we consider the people who support them in self-centered activity.  They care nothing for eternal values but want only to satisfy earthly desires.  Materialism, power and control, and what the Spirit calls fleshly lusts which wage war in us, and against the souls of men. May we be careful not to love (agape) the world nor the things in it.  They are given for us to enjoy, and we all learn the balance of enjoying our Father’s good gifts.  But may we learn that pleasure of His as He rejoices over us as His children, chosen in Christ, to know Him and enjoy Him forever.