There is an old Bible school children’s song that goes like this:
Be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little eyes what you see. For the Father up above is looking down in love, So be careful little eyes what you see. Be careful little hands what you touch . . . Be careful little feet where you go . . . Be careful little ears what you hear . . .
As fun as it is to sing it, the song conveys the idea that the world is a threatening, sinful, dirty place and a follower of Jesus will be constantly on guard and keep the world at arm’s length.
Many Christians have come to believe that Christianity is not about life in this world but the next world; that Christian attention is better focused on eternity than the life of the city or nation in the here and now; But Jesus words contradict this assumption .
At the end of his life Jesus prayed “ Father , I am not asking you to take them out of the world. . . . As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
it could not be more clear that Jesus wants his followers to be in the world, wants his people in every age not to try to escape from the world, transcend the world, but to engage the world, to live in it thoroughly, to live their lives fully in the world, to love the world just as God loved the world, to respect and honor and serve the world just as he did.
Dr. Willy L Mafuta Pastor,
Hopewell United Methodist Church, Hopewell, NJ 08525