October 20th, 2026
Take This World and Give Me Jesus: Why You Were Made for More Than This
There is a song with a line that cuts right to the heart of what it means to follow Christ: "Take this world and give me Jesus. This earth is not where I belong." Simple words. Profound truth. And for anyone who has ever felt the tension between loving God and loving the comfortable, familiar rhythms of life in this world, those words land with the weight of a thousand sermons.
The question worth sitting with today is this: What have you placed the word "love" on that was never meant to carry it?
The Deception of Loving the Wrong Things
We do it without thinking. We say we love our jobs, love our cars, love our favorite restaurant, love the weekend. Language shapes reality, and when we attach the word "love" to temporary things, we quietly begin to build our lives around them. We become, without realizing it, people who are more anchored to the world than to the One who made us.
The Bible is direct on this point. First John chapter 3 opens with a staggering declaration about the kind of love the Father has lavished on those who believe, calling them children of God. But it does not stop there. It goes on to say that the world does not recognize believers because it did not recognize God. There is a separation happening. A distinction. And the question every believer must honestly answer is: Which side of that distinction am I actually living on?
The Apostle John writes in the same letter that everyone who holds this hope in Christ purifies himself. Purification is not a passive process. It requires intentionality. It requires renewing the mind, as Romans 12 describes, rather than being pressed into the shape of the surrounding culture. The world is constantly forming you. The question is whether you are being formed by it or transformed by something greater.
Abiding Is the Answer
In John chapter 15, Jesus uses the image of a vine and its branches to describe the relationship between himself and his followers. The branch that does not remain connected to the vine cannot produce fruit. It withers. It becomes useless. He says plainly, "Without me you can do nothing."
That word "abide" is worth pausing over. It means to remain. To stay. To not drift. And drifting is exactly what happens when life gets busy, when bills pile up, when relationships get complicated, and when the pull of the world feels stronger than the pull of the Spirit. Abiding is the daily, unglamorous, deeply important practice of staying connected.
Abiding looks like prayer on a commute. It looks like opening Scripture not out of obligation but out of hunger. It looks like choosing worship when discouragement would rather have silence. David, in one of the most desperate moments recorded in the Old Testament, did something remarkable when his men had lost everything and turned against him. The Bible says he encouraged himself in the Lord. He did not wait for circumstances to change. He did not wait for someone else to lift his spirits. He turned toward God in the middle of the wreckage and found strength there.
That is abiding.
The World Cannot Give What Christ Gives
In John chapter 14, Jesus makes a promise that deserves to be read slowly. He tells his disciples that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to teach them all things and bring to their remembrance everything he has spoken. And then he says something that separates what God offers from what the world offers: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you."
The world offers peace as a product. Something you can buy, achieve, or arrange. A better job, a bigger house, a cleaner schedule. And none of those things are wrong in themselves. But the peace they offer is fragile. It evaporates when the diagnosis comes, when the relationship fractures, when the money runs out. The peace Christ gives operates on an entirely different foundation. It holds when everything else is shaking.
This is why the Holy Spirit matters so much. The Spirit is not a theological footnote. He is the guide, the comforter, the one who illuminates Scripture and alerts believers when something is wrong. He is the one who gives discernment when smooth words are being used to lead you somewhere you should not go. First John chapter 4 warns believers not to accept every spirit at face value, but to test them, because many false voices have gone out into the world. The Spirit of truth living inside a believer is the very thing that makes that testing possible.
You Are Not of This World
John chapter 15 contains a line that is both deeply comforting and genuinely costly: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
Belonging to Christ means being chosen out of something. It means accepting that not everyone will understand you, appreciate you, or want to be around you. It means being, as Scripture describes, a pilgrim. Someone passing through. Someone whose permanent address is not here.
That is not a call to be strange or off-putting. It is a call to be so genuinely full of love, truth, and the presence of God that the contrast speaks for itself. The greatest evangelism is not an argument. It is a life that cannot be explained apart from God.
Hebrews chapter 9 reminds every reader that it is appointed for people to die once, and after that comes judgment. Time is not neutral. It is moving. And the life being built right now, the loves being cultivated, the habits being formed, the priorities being set, all of it is shaping the kind of person who will one day stand before God.
So take inventory. Not with guilt, but with honesty. What has the word "love" been placed on that belongs in the category of "enjoy"? Where has the world been given ground that belongs to God?
This earth is not the final destination. Live like it.
There is a song with a line that cuts right to the heart of what it means to follow Christ: "Take this world and give me Jesus. This earth is not where I belong." Simple words. Profound truth. And for anyone who has ever felt the tension between loving God and loving the comfortable, familiar rhythms of life in this world, those words land with the weight of a thousand sermons.
The question worth sitting with today is this: What have you placed the word "love" on that was never meant to carry it?
The Deception of Loving the Wrong Things
We do it without thinking. We say we love our jobs, love our cars, love our favorite restaurant, love the weekend. Language shapes reality, and when we attach the word "love" to temporary things, we quietly begin to build our lives around them. We become, without realizing it, people who are more anchored to the world than to the One who made us.
The Bible is direct on this point. First John chapter 3 opens with a staggering declaration about the kind of love the Father has lavished on those who believe, calling them children of God. But it does not stop there. It goes on to say that the world does not recognize believers because it did not recognize God. There is a separation happening. A distinction. And the question every believer must honestly answer is: Which side of that distinction am I actually living on?
The Apostle John writes in the same letter that everyone who holds this hope in Christ purifies himself. Purification is not a passive process. It requires intentionality. It requires renewing the mind, as Romans 12 describes, rather than being pressed into the shape of the surrounding culture. The world is constantly forming you. The question is whether you are being formed by it or transformed by something greater.
Abiding Is the Answer
In John chapter 15, Jesus uses the image of a vine and its branches to describe the relationship between himself and his followers. The branch that does not remain connected to the vine cannot produce fruit. It withers. It becomes useless. He says plainly, "Without me you can do nothing."
That word "abide" is worth pausing over. It means to remain. To stay. To not drift. And drifting is exactly what happens when life gets busy, when bills pile up, when relationships get complicated, and when the pull of the world feels stronger than the pull of the Spirit. Abiding is the daily, unglamorous, deeply important practice of staying connected.
Abiding looks like prayer on a commute. It looks like opening Scripture not out of obligation but out of hunger. It looks like choosing worship when discouragement would rather have silence. David, in one of the most desperate moments recorded in the Old Testament, did something remarkable when his men had lost everything and turned against him. The Bible says he encouraged himself in the Lord. He did not wait for circumstances to change. He did not wait for someone else to lift his spirits. He turned toward God in the middle of the wreckage and found strength there.
That is abiding.
The World Cannot Give What Christ Gives
In John chapter 14, Jesus makes a promise that deserves to be read slowly. He tells his disciples that the Father will send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to teach them all things and bring to their remembrance everything he has spoken. And then he says something that separates what God offers from what the world offers: "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you."
The world offers peace as a product. Something you can buy, achieve, or arrange. A better job, a bigger house, a cleaner schedule. And none of those things are wrong in themselves. But the peace they offer is fragile. It evaporates when the diagnosis comes, when the relationship fractures, when the money runs out. The peace Christ gives operates on an entirely different foundation. It holds when everything else is shaking.
This is why the Holy Spirit matters so much. The Spirit is not a theological footnote. He is the guide, the comforter, the one who illuminates Scripture and alerts believers when something is wrong. He is the one who gives discernment when smooth words are being used to lead you somewhere you should not go. First John chapter 4 warns believers not to accept every spirit at face value, but to test them, because many false voices have gone out into the world. The Spirit of truth living inside a believer is the very thing that makes that testing possible.
You Are Not of This World
John chapter 15 contains a line that is both deeply comforting and genuinely costly: "If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
Belonging to Christ means being chosen out of something. It means accepting that not everyone will understand you, appreciate you, or want to be around you. It means being, as Scripture describes, a pilgrim. Someone passing through. Someone whose permanent address is not here.
That is not a call to be strange or off-putting. It is a call to be so genuinely full of love, truth, and the presence of God that the contrast speaks for itself. The greatest evangelism is not an argument. It is a life that cannot be explained apart from God.
Hebrews chapter 9 reminds every reader that it is appointed for people to die once, and after that comes judgment. Time is not neutral. It is moving. And the life being built right now, the loves being cultivated, the habits being formed, the priorities being set, all of it is shaping the kind of person who will one day stand before God.
So take inventory. Not with guilt, but with honesty. What has the word "love" been placed on that belongs in the category of "enjoy"? Where has the world been given ground that belongs to God?
This earth is not the final destination. Live like it.
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