281. MAKE A CLEAN BREAK!

(The Faith Forum Series – Batch 9)

This may present a challenge to us in one way or another and it may be more difficult for some than for others. However, when we surrender to the Lordship and leading of Jesus Christ, when we say that we have accepted him as our Saviour, he expects us to make a clean break from the world and all that it represents.

This does not mean that we go out of the world. Jesus Christ himself prayed not that his followers should be taken out of the world but that God would keep them from the evil (John 17:15). It also does not mean that we must operate in seclusion from the world and ostracize or look down at the people that are in the world. What it means is that, given that we have been delivered from Egypt (which symbolically represents the world’s way, its ideologies, methods and systems), while on our way to the Promised Land (which represents our eternal inheritance in the Lord’s presence), we must not pine or lust after the leeks and onions of Egypt. The leeks and onions represent the world’s way of operating, its pleasures, the things that bring it delight and that it holds dear.

If we are serious about our commitment to God, we cannot be courting the world. Those are the actions of an unfaithful person, an adulterer. Similar to when a man enters into a marriage covenant, he is to leave all that is behind, all other prospects and cleave to his wife. He is expected to be faithful in that marriage, to be fully committed to the one he has entered into covenant with. He cannot therefore be longing or pining after some other woman but must let the breasts of his wife satisfy him.

In Proverbs 5:15,17-20, a parent gives a son sound wisdom as it pertains to the marriage relationship and the need for contentment within. The parent tells the son:

“Drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well… Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?”

The strange woman here, can to my mind, be symbolic of the world. For, when we as Christians, commit to Christ, the ways of the world and the system of the world are to become strange to us, the world not being part of the intimate relationship we now have with Christ.

The world knows us not as Christ knows us, nor does the world care for us, as he cares for us. The world has made no promise to us, for our welfare but Christ has. He has asserted that he loves us with an everlasting love and has promised us an eternal inheritance. The least that we can do therefore, in reciprocity, is to remain faithful in that covenant. Our eyes and our heart must not stray, so as to desire the things that pertain to the world. If we say we love Christ and we mean it, then the world’s way and its systems should be counted strange to us and increasingly lose its appeal, as we daily deny our flesh, our heart having already been captured by our devotion to Christ.

1 John 2:15-16 tells us clearly:

“Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

For a man to say he loves his wife and then to go out and wilfully cheat on her or to long after someone else outside the marriage is not genuine love. Such actions reveal that his heart is not entirely in that marriage. Maybe it never was or his love has grown cold. His wife has not truly captured his heart.

In Song of Solomon 4:9, the husband, overwhelmed with the extent of the love he felt for his wife, stated, “Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart…” Such was his desire and devotion to his wife, that there was room for no other. She had his undivided attention and his eyes, his focus was on only her.

In the New Covenant, where the Lord likens the relationship of the Church and Christ to the bride and the bridegroom, he expects no less.

We are to forsake all else and focus on Him. We are to make a clean break from the allures of the world and its methods, so that we can wholeheartedly follow Christ. Making a clean break means leaving our past and all those involved in it, behind. It involves leaving our worldly way of dressing, the worldly music and the worldly places we used to visit, the worldly conversations we used to have, the worldly habits and ways of doing things, behind.

Many people who have professed Christianity today, seem to not understand this. They want to claim that they are holding on to Christ with one hand and holding the world in the other. However, Jesus calls for exclusivity. He wants all of us or none at all. We must let go of the worldly practices, the worldly fashions, the things that the world holds dear, in exclusive pursuit of Christ.

If a person claims to know Christ therefore but loves the world’s music and wants to even adopt aspects of it for the Church, embracing the beat, the rhythm and simply substituting the words, then the authenticity of that person’s faith is to be questioned. If, when the Word of God tells us that it is a shame for a man to have long hair, a man knows what the Word of God says but finds it difficult to carry his hair short because he wants to do what others in the world are doing and to be trendy, then this is a possible indicator as to where his heart truly lies.

If, when modesty is to be embraced by the Christian woman, you love tight, revealing clothes and enjoy exposing aspects of your body to appear sexy and hot to others, this says a lot about you. You are unwilling to let go aspects of the world. You say you want to have Christ but you want to have the world also.

If you want to adopt the world’s way of doing business and bring it into the Church, so that the Church looks more and more like a business or secular organization and not a Church, as God intended, then you too are having problems making a clean break from the world.

You reason: “But there is wisdom in the world! There are good methods and structures which work in business, that can yield benefits for the Church as well.”

I will answer you with no words of my own but simply state what 1 Corinthians 3:19 states. It declares, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.” You cannot therefore expect to take the world’s system for operating business and put it in the Church, which is not a secular organization and expect it to work. The Church is a living, breathing, spiritually founded organism. It is therefore far superior to the methods of the world.

I firmly believe (although there are those who disagree), that when we voluntarily adopt the world’s business methods and procedures into the Church (which is not at all our mandate from the Lord), while the Church may look healthy and thriving from a secular perspective, that Church suffers, for it loses its focus and forgets the basics for why it was built by Jesus Christ in the first place. It takes on the form of a business or a secular organization and it looks less and less like the early day Church we read about in the scriptures. On the whole, it may look good on the surface but that Church becomes powerless, a mere caricature of what it ought to be because it has drawn its inspiration from the world’s way of operating and adopted the world’s methods as good, instead of relying on the Spirit of God and drawing guidance from the scriptures alone.

In conclusion, if we say we know Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, God calls us to make a clean break from the world, all of it, so that we can properly follow Christ. What aspect of the world’s system are you struggling to let go of? Is it certain television shows or movies? Is it that ex-flame from your worldly past? Is it worldly family members or friends? Is it a fashion trend or a worldly mentality, where you desire to be sexy or popular or accepted or rich or to have a comfortable life or to be pridefully recognized by others or to fit in? By the grace of almighty God, whatever it is (and it will be different for all of us), you MUST make a clean break.

For, if you hold on to it, it will only weigh you down and make your faith walk onerous or worse yet, cause you to come to a halt, as happened to Lot’s wife. The scriptures, which, in addition to being profitable for doctrine were written for our learning, reproof, correction and instruction (Romans 15:4; 2 Timothy 3:16) admonish us to “Remember Lot’s wife.” (Luke 17:32). Whether it was her married daughters that perished in Sodom and Gomorrah (family members) or some other reason, she had a hard time making a clean break, although commanded to escape for her life. She therefore looked back while on her way out of Sodom and Gomorrah and when she did so, she was turned into a pillar of salt.

Then there are those, where, their faith never having been genuine saving faith to begin with but imitation faith and therefore, never having been deeply rooted or anchored in Christ, they became offended by the sufferings they experience as a result of the word and stopped believing, aborted the faith walk all entirely and returned to the world. Alternatively, where some still kept the faith and were therefore genuine Christians that believed the truth of the gospel from the heart, they allowed the cares of the world, pursuing worldly riches, pleasures and life’s pressures, to so overwhelm them, as to make them lose their focus, become unfruitful and therefore, be of no use to the Master.

Of both groups of people, in Matthew 13:20-22, where Jesus gave the parable of the sower and the seed, he stated:

“But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it, Yet hath not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful.”

Luke 8:13-14, also makes record of these two categories of people of which Jesus spoke. It states:

“They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.”

The Word of God is clear. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye CANNOT serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

This verse is often used when referring to money but the principle extends to all aspects of the world’s allure. You can’t claim to be faithfully following Christ but yet still be courting some aspect of the world. You must make a clean break, so as to loosen up yourself from the weight that the baggage of world brings.

Hebrews 12:1-2 tells us:

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside EVERY WEIGHT, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

2 Timothy 2:4 states, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.”

Making a clean break may mean suffering ridicule from others. It may mean giving up what looks like good opportunities. It may mean that you may lose out on some things and that is okay. The Christian life is about suffering and sacrifice, all of which is worth it in the end.

When Ruth determined that she was going to Bethlehemjudah with her mother-in-law Naomi, she made a clean break from everything else, including her family in Moab and the possible opportunity to remarry someone there. She purposed in her heart that she was not going back and so, while Orpah gave in to the persuasion and went back to her ungodly people in Moab, Ruth clung to Naomi and whatever that meant for her future.

Ruth told her mother-in-law, who was trying to convince her of all the logical reasons why she should go back to Moab, which symbolically represented the world and all its so-called “benefits”:

“Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God…the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.”

If Ruth could have given her mother-in-law, a mere human being, such devotion, how much more should we demonstrate our faithfulness and commitment to Christ, the one who created us and died for our sins so that we could receive salvation and the one who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords? What is the world and anything in it but dung, when compared to the precious excellence of Christ?

Paul understood how worthless all that the world had to offer was when he compared it to what he had received without merit, in Christ Jesus. Of all his worldly accomplishments, which, from a worldly perspective, gave him every right to boast, Paul stated:

“But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count then but dung, that I may win Christ.” (Philippians 3:7-8)

(Written on 19th June, 2023)

Dear Reader, if you found the above Article to be interesting, informative, beneficial or edifying, you may also be interested in reading the following: