If something that is necessary for our life-even our wife, husband, children, or parents-becomes more to us than God, it is the world. In order to exist as humans, we need to have parents, marry, have children, eat, and drink, but at a certain point all these necessities may become something more than the Lord to us; then they become the world. This is why the Lord told us to follow Him to the extent that we give up not only the surplus of the necessary things but also, at times, the necessary things themselves.
The world is something that possesses and usurps us. Man was made purposely as a vessel for God, so he must be possessed by God and used for God. But because we are used by something else, we are usurped. Anything which usurps us is the world. Even buying a Bible can be the world to us. It is possible that we are far off from God in this matter. We do not care about the will of God; we simply like collecting spiritual books, but even spiritual books can be the world to us. Anything other than God Himself that possesses and occupies us is the world.
We realize that sins are very bad, but we may not realize how serious it is that the world usurps us. To us, the world may be a more serious problem than sins. One young man may have committed some sins, while another young man is very occupied by certain good yet worldly things. Because the second young man never does sinful things, many people may admire and appreciate him. They may say that he is a fine and wonderful man. However, he may be one hundred percent usurped, occupied, and possessed by something other than God.
We Christians today often neglect many words of the Lord. We read the word of the Lord concerning forsaking the world, but we may give up nothing. It seems to some that to be a Christian is to be a happy, healthy person. They may never realize that to be a Christian we need to give up many things. The gospel preached in Christianity today is very different from that preached by the Lord. Today some preach the gospel by telling people that when they become a Christian, things will be very nice and happy. In this way the preachers simply fool people. However, the Lord never fooled us. When He preached the gospel, He told us clearly that in order to follow Him we must forsake everything and come and follow Him (Matt. 8:19-22; 19:21). What must we forsake? It is the things other than God Himself. However, it is regrettable that among Christians today there is very little forsaking and giving up.
The worldly matters differ from one person to another. Perhaps with one person a Bible is a necessity; it is something of God and not the world. However, with someone else it is entirely an item and habit of the world. To one mother her child is not the world, but to another mother her child may be the biggest world. This is because that child is everything to her. That child is number one in everything, and the Lord is number two.
A certain Christian mother and father had three sons. The mother loved the Lord very much, and she was very zealous in gospel preaching and other matters. However, one day she told the most clever of her three sons that he should study medical science. Then she told the second, less clever son that he should study commerce. To the least clever one she said, “I have offered you to the Lord. You must go study at a Bible institute.” In doing this, the mother proved herself to be very worldly. To her, all her sons were nothing but the world. If we would check ourselves in this light, from this point of view, we will find how much the world is with us.
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