In 1 Cor 3: 1-4, Paul chastises the Corinthian Church and calls them spiritual infants. He says he would like to address them as adults so they can talk about adult things, but they are still infants in Christ. He does not say they are unbelievers, only they have not progressed in their faith. He gives us one example of their lack of progress. He says they are filled with jealousy and strife and arguing amongst themselves on who they follow and who saved them, Paul or Apollos. This is a group of believers arguing and fighting over absurd things that mean nothing, because neither Paul not Apollos saved them, it was Jesus. Yet people being people will argue and fight tooth and nail over anything and refuse to give an inch, even when it is pointed out they are in error.
This is a heart problem and a faith problem. These are people who believe in Jesus for their salvation, but they cannot release the thinking of the world. Believers often miss this point when they get saved. They do not realize they are not only saved from sin, they are redeemed from a life of slavery. The Church is not to bind them or add another burden to their already insane schedule. Jesus came to free us and in our freedom commission us to free others. This is the problem where the Church and culture clash. Most of us do not want to be free because we have bought the lies. We have been propagandized from birth to present that we must go to school. We must get the best job and we must earn the best income and we must work around 40 years or so and if we do everything right and make it to the point of retirement, then we can slow down and do all the things we never got done during our high energy years and coast on our savings, investments, and Social Security. This is a lie.
This world is possessed by a great tempter and liar who knows what he is doing. Satan knows the heart of men. He gets us better than we get ourselves. Satan knows we want security, happiness, and certainty. Satan knows if he can promise these things through a lifetime of drudgery, people will jump right on board. Our entire culture is designed to advance the kingdom of Satan and destroy God’s highest creation. This is how Satan wins, out smarts us, and keeps so many in this world on the treadmill never going anywhere because they have bought all the lies and are too afraid to be free.
We do not want to accept the simple fact Satan owns this world. This is his domain. He is king here and it is all his. He can give what he wants to whomever he chooses and many line up seeking his blessings. Satan says if you work hard, do good in school, stay out of trouble, then you can have it all and so much more. You will be like gods if you follow his rules and worship him. You must dedicate your time to schooling. You must dedicate your time to labor and work. You must dedicate your time to survival and if you do all of this, you will earn a good income, buy a house, drive a nice truck, have yourself a pretty wife or a handsome husband and 1.9 kids. God has to be second for this deal to work though. You cannot have God first because then the whole equation fails. That is the temptation and the lie and how almost everyone is bound to slavery. Jesus faced the same temptation and said no. We struggle to say no because we believe the lie.
Think about it. If you have more than 1.9 kids you risk certainty. We are told if you have fewer kids you can have even more certainty because you will have more money and more time to work, earn, save, and invest. With fewer kids you can have a nicer truck. You can get a boat too if you want and a bigger house. Kids are too expensive and the world is scary. “I don’t want to bring kids up in this world….,” I hear it all the time. Don’t risk your certainty. Just have fewer kids and you will have greater control and higher prospects of success. Use birth control and if it fails you can abort. Get married later so you can make sure your career is off and running first and you are locked in on the right career path. Working more is how you get ahead of those who just put in forty hours. Be first to arrive and last to leave and never leave before the boss. This is the recipe for success!
What we fail to realize when we buy this system is the world hates Jesus and it hates God and it wants us enslaved to certainty because we cannot trust God to deliver what we need when we need it. Jesus came to free us from slavery and he made an effort to inform us how much the world hates Him and those who follow Him in John 15 so we would believe him. The Apostles left everything to follow Jesus. He warned them they would be thrown out of the Synagogue. In other words they would be rejected by their culture for following Jesus. They would be beaten and imprisoned for their faith and they would stand before all types of people to proclaim freedom and they would be hated for it because Satan hates Jesus.
The thing about Satan’s offer of security if we sell ourselves into school, labor, and investment slavery in this. These are the lies of Satan used to take our eyes off the real race and the real prize, which is faith in Jesus. None of the worldly things are guaranteed no matter how hard we work or how much time we dedicate our lives to them. None of them are promised. We can work ourselves to the bone and a company can go bankrupt and that pension is gone. Do you remember all the corporate raids that dominated the 1980’s? Corporate Raiders would buy a company on leverage and loot it, suck all the money out of it, take out huge loans on its assets and empty its pension before declaring bankruptcy and putting everyone out of work and broke. These folks working were devastated and it had nothing to do with them. Our cities and towns are filled with empty buildings who were victims of this chicanery. Most people were working hard and doing all the things they were supposed to do based on the promises and security and someone else swooped in and destroyed everything and absconded with all the loot and left them holding an empty bag of promise and hopium.
My childhood was filled with these horror stories of people losing everything they believed in and being crushed emotionally and spiritually by the loss. Satan wants you to forget about how cruel this world is. You just have to work harder and you better nail someone else before they nail you because it is a dog eat dog world out there and everyone is trying to get ahead. Does that kind of life sound even remotely biblical? Does this kind of slavery sound like it is God’s plan for his creation? This is a horror story. This world destroys people a little bit at a time and then crushes them right before they get to what they think is the finish line and we fall for it because we are spiritual infants and cannot see what is happening and refuse to trust God.
Just think about the people who have placed their faith in this world and its system of hard work and saving for a lifetime before the reward of retirement comes. Now think of the people you know who worked for a company and were laid off right before drawing a pension or the company was bought or they were downsized. There are a number of ways this happens and all of it is legal. Pension funds have been looted time and time again and people who believed the lie about security through a lifetime of dedication and hard work find out the hard way it was a lie and they are back working part time somewhere because their safety net is gone. Then the real kicker comes in when they discover if they work too much they will lose their Social Security benefits also so they are stuck in limbo between poverty and barely making it.
I see it all the time. I see these folks all over the place. It is not hard to see them if you are looking. Just look up when you are in town. You will see them. Their face is creased into a frown. The American Dream they thought was promised and they spent their entire life to get, evaporated like a mist and they were left holding the bag of a life spent chasing an empty promise. This is Satan’s snare and he has gobbled up more people with this promise than I can shake a stick at. They fill our churches and are looking for answers they refuse to see. These people are spiritual infants who lived in this world for the wrong reasons because they lacked the faith required to live in the next. These are the people who are barely getting by and wondering how it happened. Or they managed to get wealthy playing the game but are still feeling empty because there is nothing there but money in a bank account.
I see a lot of folks get bitter and go full steam ahead into the bottle instead of face the truth. Hate is easier than love. Remember the young people rioting in the summer of 2020 over their pretend rage at George Floyd and police brutality? Amazing how quiet they are now, right? They were rioting and burning and looting because they knew they would never have access to the American Dream and they were being manipulated by people who know it too. Their opportunity was sold before they ever got the chance to decide if they wanted it or not, but they still took out college loans to try and get there. Only the goal post was moved too far for them to go, so they have rage and are easily manipulated to sew chaos and discord. It is easier to hate the world and the circumstances that have stolen the false dream than it is to recognize you believed a lie designed to keep you away from God the whole time.
We cannot love God and money. The devil tells us we can have them both. This is his lie and because we want to believe it, we do everything we can to make it happen. Jesus came to set us free. Jesus knows this world is owned by the devil and is filled with temptations. Each one of his followers had to leave the world and follow him. Remember each of their calls? They dropped what they were doing to follow Jesus. Jesus says God knows what we need and what we want and he will deliver. Being a Christian used to mean you were radically different than the world. You were probably poor and not concerned with all the things of the world. There was a time Christians were hated by kings and princes because they refused to acknowledge anything counter to God and would not enlist in their armies or fight for their earthly kingdoms. With Constantine things changed and the Church lost its way and became an institution.
Ever since Constantine, being a Christian means you are even better at following the worlds rules than those who are worldly and it is a crying shame. Jesus says the world hated him first and if you follow him, it will hate you to. The Devil says if you strive for that apple and eat it, you will be like gods with certainty of your future, knowing right and wrong, and you will live. This has always been his lie and we keep eating it up. If you give everything you have to Jesus and dedicate your entire life to him, you cannot waste it, no matter how short it is or long you live here. God knows what you need. Jesus said it clearly. Does God not know the very birds and what they need and when they fly or when they die and does he not know you even more? God knows what you need and He will provide, but we have to trust Him more than ourselves.