Make the World Go Away, Take It Off of My Shoulders

[HKHaugan]

“Make the World Go Away, Take It Off of My Shoulders…”

These are the opening words to an old country song sung by Jim Reeves. Keep them in mind as you read.

When you go to the mountains in North Carolina there are always ads along the way that lure you to so-called gem mines. They are little shacks with sluice-like water troughs where you pour in buckets of dirt guaranteed to contain rubies, amethysts and other jewels in the rough. Of course you know the dirt is dug and trucked to the site but it is kind of fun. Every once in a while you may find a precious stone. I did and it was, after cleaning and setting, made into a beautiful blue topaz neckpiece.

Also on the Mississippi coast are a few casinos that have flashing lights temptingly implying “Come in and make fortune.” You know the scenario. You go in, play a few machines, try a hand of blackjack, win a few coins or hands and the sticky fingers of greed have you hooked in the cycle of ‘Another try and I just might hit the big one.’ To be honest I must say that many years ago I played a slot machine in a Maryland gas station and got nothing. And that was when a quarter was worth something. But I know some people who live and die by the empty promises that these places and their machines can be beaten.

Or perhaps you have succumbed to the inviting glare of lottery promises where ‘everyone wins’ even when you lose. ‘After all someone has to win, it might as well be me.’ If you lose you can justify your loss by saying, “At least it’s going to education.” But what kind of message do these places send to young minds and what message am I sending about myself? The hope of a quick fix and believing you can ‘beat the system’ are not an education.

Now add up the amount spent on these various enterprises. [Count now………………………….]
See what I mean?
The feelings, the energy, the temptation, the resulting disappointment, the loss and guilt, the ‘why did I do that anyway?’ Were the time, the emotion and the result worth it?

One of the most important passages in Scripture is Colossians 2:6-3:17. It is predicated on a searing ever present challenge to the human heart,---think Jesus---deny the world. It is all about our ever present internal private mind, heart and spirit commitment to Jesus as the ever present single influence that guides our ever present conscious moments. For every one who believes they are disciples of Jesus it is the ‘now’ of our lives that the world wants us to divert into its principles.

By the ‘world’ I mean the invisible social and spiritual atmosphere that operates apart from God. Its mastermind is the devil. Let’s give it a look.

The false allure of the world is its distortion of ‘now.’ Listen to its calling, ‘Get what you can while you can,’ ‘Do unto others before they do you,’ ‘If it feels good do it,’ ‘It’s what you think you need at any moment that you ought to have,’ ‘I only have one life to live so I want it all now,’ ‘If you want it you should have it,’ ‘Rich people are bad, poor people are good,’ ‘I’m really a good person,’ ‘Religion is for the weak,’ ‘If I only had more money,’ ‘I never get a break,’ ‘Why should I work, the government will support me,’ ‘The problem is all of ‘them,’ you know, the blacks, the whites, the Hispanics, the Jews, the rednecks, the Asians, those foreigners, you know ‘them,’ they get all the breaks, ‘they were born with money so they got a head start,’ ‘The world owes me a living.’

The ‘world’ (again read the devil) is on a mission. Divide by class, ethnicity, education, poor, rich, orientation (of all kinds), nationality, profession, neighborhood, age, appearance, intellect, religion, family, heritage and all the rest. Once divided keep them agitated and suspicious of one another. Exploit the seen, the ‘now’ with these unseen techniques. Keep people believing they are being offended by someone or something all the time. It’s called social paranoia which becomes a political agenda. The language of this division is ‘they,’ ‘those people,’ ‘you know what they are like,’ ‘your people,’ which causes the formation of ‘rainbow coalitions’ and the rise of fake ‘champions’ to lead the cause, maintain, nurture and feed the separations for their own personal power.

It’s all those false assumptions we use to justify why we are where are when God is not our focus. It’s my assessment of where I am, who I am and my general discontent that shows life is all about me. We live in a sea of discontent and its source is the prince of this world, the devil. The master of discontent knows how to get us to see ourselves as innocent victims, look for and define the offenders, blame them and get on the bandwagon of anger and wage a personal war against them, if not in the open at least within. It’s a lonely war ending in bitterness and isolation.

The ‘world’ is the garbage heap of self-centeredness. It’s the antique store of our fallen nature. It’s the super market of our urges and the wishing well of our desires. The ‘world’ is flashing lights and glaring promises. Any moment happiness can be bought for a price. These are just some of the hidden personal persuaders that come out of the world and are its ‘moan and groan’ principles.

Now see the contrast. Jesus is the definition of “now.” Why? His Resurrection. He is risen and alive right now. He has always been and will always be. “All things were created by Him and for Him…(Col.1:16).” When we think Jesus all the other stuff fades far off. What is the first most startling realization? Every single human being is an image of God. Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…” We were all made in the image of Jesus and He died and rose again to make that real for us.

He is here right now which means eternity is now and always has been now. He is the unity, the unifier, the unifying person, the unified God, the unification of humanity always in the here and now. He is the ‘now’ person and it is for our return to ‘now’ that He came to show that death has no hold over any of us. He is the one who diffuses the entire world’s push to insanity.

It’s who Jesus is as a person that is the lightning rod drawing evil out in the open, exposing its emptiness and then providing the picture, the promise and the power of eternal reality. It’s His character, His mind, His heart and His Spirit that rally all the resources of God to correct the brokenness in the world. He is what it means to be human, to be an individual, to be a person. He’s all right there in Scripture for everyone to see, to read, to ponder, to compare and to become like. No wonder Paul writes so dramatically in Php.3:10-11, “I want to know Christ and the power of His Resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Can we say the same?