War of the Worlds
War of the Worlds
May 15, 2025
Now, not talking about the movie, but about the struggle between all the distractions of this material world and the”great and precious promises” of the eternal world to come…
We struggle to make sense of everything going on in our world — or should I say “worlds,” because we pretty much live in our own realities, our own localities, and in our own situations. As the disdainful saying goes, “He’s living in his own world.”
Yet, aren’t we all?
We are not always socially engaged.
We think of the two worlds as separate entities when, in fact, they are a naturally integral part in our lives, interacting all the time within our being and also interacting outside of our control.
We simply are not always aware of them.
In the Bible, the Apostle Paul observes the struggle for balance in our normal lives and in our fight for victory in the morality of our higher nature — our “better angels.”
We are not fighting against humans. We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world. — Ephesians 6:12, Contemporary English Version (CEV).
From this, I find justification in the saying, “Love the sinner; hate the sin.”
This is not the horribly controversial and confused directive that some try to make it out to be.
Come on! It’s really simple…
We all have our struggles — within and without.
I make screw ups all the time. Don’t you?
As parents, we only want the best for our children. So, when we see one of our family in danger of hurting or harming themselves or anyone else, our instinctive reaction is to intervene to prevent that calamity from happening to them. Yet, we cannot be overprotective, coddling them in such a way that they will never graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.
Sometimes, like God has done with His children, we have to let our children go.
After all, people — related to us or complete strangers — are independent beings, separate from one another, with the power for self-direction.
The Safety Net is Reality.
Reality is very strict, but it is an efficient and very effective Teacher.
You might not recall those times when God let go. Here are a few examples:
- Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden.
- Cain takes more than one wife.
- Tower of Babel.
- The Flood.
- Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Forty Years wandering in the wilderness.
- Allowing Israel to have a King.
- Allowing Jesus to be crucified.
In addition, if you read the stories in full, you might notice that God’s alternate choices were to scrap all of Mankind… The Lord saw how bad the people on earth were and that everything they thought and planned was evil. He was sorry that he had made them, and he said, “I’m going to destroy every person on earth! I’ll even wipe out animals, birds, and reptiles. I’m sorry I ever made them.” — Genesis 6:5–7, CEV.
Now, that’s a hard thing to balance with the fact that God is Love. Isn’t it?
You see, from the idea that we are made in God’s image, the reverse is true: God has choices , too.
Yet, as I have just tried to explain, from a child’s point of view, parental love is not always easy to see, either. Is it?
Respect and obey the Lord! This is the beginning of wisdom. — Proverbs 9:10, CEV.
In conclusion, whether or not you derive your moral and ethical standards from the Bible or not, when you try to be a nice person something can get in your way — “We are fighting against forces and authorities and against rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world.”
Keeping that in mind, what I am trying to show everyone is that the Bible has God’s truth-filled and practical insights for living successfully and productively in our daily lives.
Here is a view from the Apostle Paul about his personal struggles to maintain high moral standard:
With my whole heart I agree with the Law of God. But in every part of me I discover something fighting against my mind, and it makes me a prisoner of sin that controls everything I do. What a miserable person I am. Who will rescue me from this body that is doomed to die? Thank God! Jesus Christ will rescue me. — Romans 7:22–25, CEV.
Let me emphasize the last sentence: Thank God! Jesus Christ will rescue me.
Nevertheless, I understand why people so adamantly resist God’s solution for our unrelenting struggles.
I understand, because I continually tried to succeed on my own, and I also excluded God, Jesus, and the Bible from my struggles.
It didn’t work out so well.
How are you getting along?
Still and all, what a difference Jesus has made in my life!
