Kosmos

Each morning on my way to work I drop my daughter off at her bus stop. As I pull away from the curb I turn on the radio and listen to a local station. However, today I didn't have to go into work...but decided to listen to the broadcast, anyway. So, after getting my daughter on the bus (6:55 AM...brrrr!), I returned home, made a pot of coffee, and settled down to listen to the broadcast, "Hope Beyond Temptation", by Charles Swindoll.

He began by saying, "Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts! I set apart my whole body for you Jesus and make you Lord of my life today!" And immediately I thought, "How do I sanctify myself in a world full of wickedness and perversion? How do I commit my entire being to Christ when I am constantly bombarded with visual images of sex, greed, vanity, pride, and gluttony as I leave my house each day? When I turn on the TV the same can be said. When I turn on the radio, songs speak volumes about sex, greed, vanity, pride, and gluttony. So...how does a single woman live in such a world without compromising herself?" As I asked myself these questions, Swindoll continued (paraphrase):

"God has deliberately, not inadvertently, left many of us on this earth to live more years in-Christ than out-of-Christ in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation...among whom we are to shine as lights in the world.
One of my mentors has made a classic description of the world in which we live: crooked and perverted. And we live in such a world on purpose. Don't think for a minute that Jesus made a mistake in leaving you and me as His lights in a world that is moving in a direction opposite from Him. In fact, He intended us to live in such a world; John 17 is proof of that. In the hours before His arrest Jesus prayed to the Father for His followers. He did not ask that His followers be taken out of the world or away from it; but prayed that His followers would be guarded and protected from evil while living in the world.

In John 17 Jesus was not talking about the physical planet earth, a world with geography and weather. He was speaking of an invisible world system that finds its origin in the enemy himself. And followers of Christ have been left in such a world on purpose as examples, as testimonies, as lights."

At this point in the broadcast Swindoll had my full attention. I waited eagerly for his next words and was not disappointed (again, I paraphrase):

If you turn to John's first letter you'll find an example of the invisible world Christ was talking about. We are told in the letter, 'Do not love the world, or things in the world. If anyone loves the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life - is not from the Father, but from the world. But the world is passing away, and so are its lusts. But the one who does the will of God lives forever'. The word 'world' used in this passage comes from the term kosmos (the term from which we get the word cosmetic) and is not a reference to the planet earth. Kosmos is the world system that characterizes life on planet earth, a system marked by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life.

Furthermore, toward the end of the letter, John says, 'We know that we are of God and the world is under the power of the evil one'. The whole world system...its drive, its goals, rests in the lap of the enemy. And it is in the lap of the enemy that the world system is cultivated and nourished, designed to give us pleasure, make us comfortable, cause us relief, and gains our favor. And over this invisible world system Satan reigns as prince. Just watch the commercials on TV and you'll see the system I'm talking about. Commercials are designed to make you dissatisfied with who you are and everything you have in order to sell what they are offering. The same can be said for kosmos. Kosmos whistles appealingly, 'Come on, you'll love it...this is so much fun, you'll feel so good'.

Now, I said all that to provide a background for the Apostle Peter's challenge to think and be different, resist the subtle influence(s) of the world system, and be holy as God is holy."

Ahhh! Swindoll finally answered my questions. To be set apart and sanctified means to think and be different, resist the seductions of a wicked world, and be like my Heavenly Father...holy. As His eternal daughter I should act accordingly...single or otherwise!