Letters to Annie: Be Determined to Overcome the World

Dear Annie,

            Yesterday I had a dream. The dream was very weird for me, I never had one like this before. Maybe it’s a warning or simply a reminder for me (and I share it with you here): I was swallowed by the world, sucked into a dark matter, and buried in the earth deep. Everything is crowded around me and my vision slowly dim. This dream reminds me of 1 John 2:15-17, but particularly verse 15, “Do not love the world or anything that belongs to the world. If you love the world, you do not love the Father.”

            Annie, my love, we live in the world, but we should not worship it – yet at every turn, or so it seems, we are tempted to do otherwise. I want to be success, I want to be known and I want to appear great to the world but not consume by the things of God! Billy Graham asked, “The world’s sewage system threatens to contaminate the stream of Christian thought. Is the world shaping your mind, or is Christ?”

            The 21^st century world we live in is a noisy, distracting place, a place that offers countless temptations and dangers. Isn’t it, Annie? The world seems to cry, ‘Worship me with your time, your money, your energy, your thoughts, and your life!’ It swallow, suck and bury us slowly into the deep of the earth. But if we are wise and faithful, we won’t fall prey to that temptation. “Nothing is more foolish than a security build upon the world and its promises,” claimed Matthew Henry, “for they are all vanity and a lie.”

            C.S. Lewis said, “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth and you will get neither.” That’s good advice. You’re likely to hit what you aim at, so aim high… aim at heaven. Be consumed with the things of God. “He who does the will of God lives forever” (1 John 2:17). The world’s power to distract, detour, and destroy is formidable. Thankfully, God’s power is even greater. “[We] win the victory over the world by means of our faith. Who can defeat the world? Only the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4-5).

Thank you dear for taking your time to read this letter. I hope it will be a good reminder for us both. I love you so much that I pray you would love God and to do his will more than the things of the world. Have faith and keep on believing in Jesus, the Son of God, the One Who unite us together.

I miss you,

Richard

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.