We are not to remain stagnant. God has called us to learn, to grow, and to become better. He gives us a huge goal, which is to come into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ. He tells us He wants us to become perfect, even as He is perfect. We have to overcome, grow, and produce fruit so that we bring God glory, give praise to Him, and please Him, and so that we are prepared for the Kingdom of God. This is the process of being conformed into His character image. We talk a lot about improving in the religious side of our lives. However, very infrequently, we talk about improving in our physical pursuits. But they do all go together. In John 17, Jesus is speaking about His disciples and about us. He tells God that He was going to leave the world and leave them behind. He wants us to be united with Him, even though He has gone away, while we are still here in this world. When we were called out of the world and accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior, we began a new life in the Spirit. We have been changed, in a way, by God coming into our lives. We have a whole new perspective on things. But our physical circumstances remain largely unchanged. We are still the same person underneath it all. We have the same family, we have the same education, and we have the same job, the same physical body, we are in the same basic condition as we were, and we even have the same fundamental character and personality we had before. The only difference in our life now is that God has appeared in it. That has caused other changes, but in the main we are the same. Our circumstances are the same. As we try to live God's way, being very much the same as we were before conversion, Jesus' statement here is so true. We remain in this wretched world, but we are no longer of it. We suddenly find ourselves strangers in a foreign land, even though it is the land that we grew up in, the land of our birth. We find that suddenly the world has turned against us. It hates us. Many of the so-called freedoms and advantages that we once enjoyed, being unconverted and not knowing what was right, are now denied to us. We cannot do the same things that we used to do. As Peter says, we do not run to those things that the Gentiles do, what we once did with them. We cannot. Satan himself, who is the architect of this evil world and system, wants us eternally dead. And so he sets his minions against us. But we are told here in John 17 that Christ our Savior purposefully sends us into the world. But He also sanctifies us by the truth; we are set apart, we are consecrated, and He also puts us under the keeping or protection of God Himself. Keep them through Your word, He says. So, we have advantages along with our disadvantages. While in the world, we are not without resources, and we are not alone. But, we are still in the world that we are not to be a part of, which hates us. In I John 2, this world, in which we have been left, this ordered system of living that is against God, becomes one of our enemies, not just satan and his minions but the world itself. We cannot become too friendly with it, and we certainly cannot love it. Many of its ways of doing things are so contrary to the way of God. We cannot become involved with them. This world is passing away. It is a ship going down in the ocean, and we do not want to be on that ship when it goes under. But if you do the will of God, you will live forever. There is quite the dichotomy, here. There is the world on one hand and God's way on the other hand. In II Corinthians 6, we are not to be friends with the world; not only are we not to love the world; not only are we not to get onto this sinking ship of this world; but now, we are supposed to come out of it and be separate. This puts us into a bit of a quandary. We are to remain in the world, and Jesus sent us into the world, yet we are to come out of the world and are not to be friends with the world. We are not to love the world. We are to remain in the world, while

Believers are not of this world, yet they live in it, and that calling does not forbid praying for its people. Scripture rightly teaches that God's Kingdom is not of this world, that Christians are to come out of the world, not love its lifestyle, and remain unspotted by it. Even so, believers cannot avoid daily dealings with the unconverted without leaving the earth (I Corinthians 5:9-12; John 17:14-15), and light is most needed where there is darkness. Christians are the light of the world, refusing the works of darkness while loving the people in it, as God loved the world enough to give His Son. Jesus kept Himself from the world's evils but lived among the people, dined with Pharisees and tax collectors, and avoided the separatist, holier-than-thou attitude God calls smoke in His nostrils. His command to pray for enemies and persecutors, along with the examples of Stephen, Paul, and Daniel, shows that intercession for the unconverted belongs to being God's children. God's words to Jeremiah forbidding prayer for Judah applied to that circumstance, not to all time. Christians reject the world's values and priorities and seek the world to come, yet they still grieve with those who suffer and pray for neighbors, rulers, and the nation. The world will hate them for being different, but they hurt when others hurt.

Believers are not of the world, just as Jesus is not of the world, yet God does not call them to bury themselves underground but to be thinking people who weigh what surrounds them and make decisions that glorify Him. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus warned the apostles to beware of the world (John 15-17; 1 John 2-5), and the same warning applies as the church nears the end of its work. Satan is the world's personal enemy, but the world is his main tool, so watching means guarding one's spiritual condition more than following world news. The key is the Greek aion in Ephesians 2:2, translated "course," which describes the spirit of the times (zeitgeist). Richard Trench defines it as the floating mass of thoughts, opinions, aims, and aspirations that forms a moral atmosphere people inhale and exhale. Others describe it as the subtle spirit of humanity alienated from God, which Satan can customize for whomever he seeks to deceive. It spreads through media, music, and words, and works through confusion and lies until people comply. Drifting with the world's ideas is the opposite of following Christ. Believers need not fear, since Jesus prays for them and will never forsake them, and faith in Him overcomes the world. They must remain alert, test what they hear and see, and keep growing in knowledge of and closeness to God.