Monday, June 3, 2013

What Exactly Is Worldliness?

A weighty quote to share on this, from J.G. Mantle's Beyond Humiliation

"What, then, is the world, and what is it to be, worldly or unworldly?  Worldliness is a spirit, a temper.  It is not so much an act as an attitude.  It is a pose, a posture.  It is a certain disposition toward God.  It is a certain inclination, a certain aspect of the soul.  Worldliness is human activity with God left out.  Worldliness is life without heavenly callings, life without ideals. life without heights.  Worldliness recognizes nothing of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus: Worldliness has no hill country.  Worldliness is horizontal life.  Worldliness has nothing of the vertical in it.  It has ambition; it has no aspirations.  Its motto is success, not holiness.  It is always saying, "Onward," never "Upward."  A worldly man or woman is a man or woman who never says, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills."  --Dr. J.H. Jowett

Are you worldly? 

Whatever passes as a cloud between
The mental eye of faith and things unseen,
Causing that brighter world to disappear,
Or seem less lovely, or its hope less dear,
This is our world, our idol, though it bear
Affection's impress, or devotion's air.