Warning: Do Not Love The Things of This World
The following is an excerpt from Anna Rountree’s ‘The Warrior King’ where she recounts the meaning of true fulfillment through Christ.
I thought back to my twenty-year-old self when first I went to New York. I was dazzled by all the lights, activities, art galleries, famous and glamorous people. I would go to a bookstore and stand for long periods looking at the pictures of famous actors and actresses—long dead. I began to think—even then—that all they had achieved and lived for was like vapor. No one remembered, and if anyone did remember, soon no one would be alive that admired their skill. It wasn’t lasting. Even a brick in the bookstore wall lasted longer than their accomplishments.
Even then, unsaved and dedicated to embracing the world and all the pretty little lies of the world, a doubt was growing in me. “Why work to create something that will not last … like the work of the famous people in the picture books.
I felt that I wanted to do something that would last. I wanted all the hard work to produce lasting rewards. But what?
Even though I was not a Christian at this time, I realized that everything in the world was passing away. One glance at the ruins of ancient civilizations told me that.
But what would last? People would say, “Oh, you live in their memories.” But I did not want to live in order to be a memory for a few years in someone’s psyche before that generation dies. That was not enough.
I never found the answer until I came to Christ, and only then, after I had been a Christian for about twenty years because when you are a new—a baby Christian, you can be very fleshly. One must grow and mature in the spiritual life as one does in a regular human life on earth because when the Lord first rescues us out of this world, we still see and do things as before, we still carry on trying to build in the world. Gradually we see this is also foolish. We get to the point where we only want to do and be and build what Jesus needs (and only if He asks us to accomplish that for Him on earth). Otherwise, we are living for the applause of humans, and applause dies fast.
But Jesus does tell us to store up treasures in Heaven: well, that certainly is not gold, silver, or jewels. The streets in Heaven are gold. It cannot be the glorious gifts the Lord has bestowed upon us. Well, no, these are His already. You might say He lends these to us to show forth His glory and to benefit the body of Christ.
What then? What lasts? What can be stored and remain and even be used later? The character of Christ. His character is gained through our flesh being consigned to the cross on earth.
As we pick up our cross and move forward to serve Him, only the part of our soul that has been transformed into the likeness of Christ will carry over and remain. It took me years to not only understand that, but then to embrace and begin to live this truth, but always, always only with Christ overcoming through me. For, while I am in this mortal body, I will always need to take every thought captive to Christ.
Jesus tells us, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”
To read more from Anna Rountree’s ‘The Warrior King,’ visit MyCharismaShop.com