No Other Rock

I have overcome the world. John 16:23

When I was younger, my friends and I played a lot of Axis and Allies and Risk. These games were appealing to us because they provided hours of entertainment and the prospect of becoming ruler of the world - albeit in a hypothetical situation. Still, they kept us occupied (and out of trouble) for hours.

Oddly enough, back then, none of us went to church. We were a bunch of aimless kids who had little parental guidance and certainly wanted no part of religion. Thankfully, Christ pulled most of us to Him.

One thing that always stood in my mind (and I think in the minds of my friends) was that - despite not having much spiritual influence - was the fact that this world is inherently messed up. Sadly, this realization led to a lot of discontentment because we all knew there was little we could do about it.

Today’s devotion kind of made me reflect upon all that. Now, to bring things back to the topic. There have been many men (and perhaps women) who have tried to take over the world and thereby “rule” it. However, none have really come all that close to doing so. Except for Jesus.

However, Jesus did so in a different way. When we really consider what our “world” is we can see what Jesus meant by “I have overcome the world.”

The world is the sum of all the possessions, powers and pleasures which this earthly life offers, organizated under the influence of Satan so as to leave God out, to oppose His sovereignty, and keep the hear of man bound to sublunary things.

Thinking back to those days of playing games that evoked world domination, I can realize how caught up in that world we were - and perhaps still are. Our source of discontent had much to do with our positions in life. We were all from families of modest means and there were no real father figures to speak of. Even God seemed to have forgotten about us (in our unknowing minds at least).

While we have all grown older, gone our separate ways, I have to wonder if we truly have overcome the world any more than we had back then. The question now becomes, where do we go from here?

Today, my prayer for you and I is that we will seek to overcome the world within ourselves.