divorcing the world

I started reading a book called girl meets God, the other day. It is by Lauren F. Winner, a former Orthodox Jew who converted to Christianity. Before she accepted Christ as her savior she was talking to a Presbyterian minister and told him that she thought she was beginning to believe in Jesus. He responded with this, “You know Lauren, you can’t just divorce Judaism.” Lauren said that she felt like she had been socked in the stomach, later she realized the truth behind his statement. “Pastor Mike’s metaphor, I learned, was useful: trading my Hebrew prayer book for an Episcopal Book of Common Prayer felt exactly like filing for divorce. That was the only word I could come up with. The more Christian I became, the more I needed to have nothing to do with Judaism. Every new Christian habit, purchase, or prayer was accompanied by the unlearning of a Jewish habit, the cessation of a Jewish prayer.”

I thought that this was an interesting metaphor and it could also be related to Christianity in general. I am not sure if that really makes sense or is written in the best possible way but it is all my brain can think of right now, so just so I hopefully don’t confuse anyone let me explain. Once you’ve accepted Christ and have decided to live your life for him you are divorcing the world like Lauren was divorcing Judaism. Living for God means living differently than the world, you are separating yourself from it and living by God’s standards. Like it says in Matthew 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” The world lives for earthly things like money. To be living for God you can’t serve them both. Lauren chose to accept Christ and give up her Jewish beliefs. We need to chose to life for Christ and give up the ways of the world, and it is a daily choice to make. And it will be well worth it in the end.

And on a completely different note, signing off on im is like hanging up the phone on someone. And Katie totally hung up on im on me I mean I just don’t understand why after saying bye 10 or so times she needed to get back to her painting. Just kidding, but not about the hanging up part. Oh I think I need to stop talking to myself and my computer now and go to bed… and people say I’m crazy really what are they talking about... oh wait... nevermind.