As we see the world demonstrating more open hostility toward Christ and the Christian, it is very important that we look at the Biblical passages which clearly instruct the Christians regarding their behavior toward the world. Here is a list of nine passages that we need to meditate upon and lay hold of in order to be ready to face the world.

1. Believers are in the world, but not of the world. "Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world … I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world … They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:11,15,16). We are not to live in a monastery outside of the world. On the other hand, we are not to be partakers of the world's standards. "We are left in the world, but we are not of the world. We are strangers in a world that is not our home. We are to be marked by heavenly characteristics, which the world should recognize as being unlike its own thoughts and ways. We are to walk apart from it." (August VanRyn)

2. Believers must realize that they are hated by the world. "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you" (John 15:19). If we bear a good testimony to Christ and His truth, we will be hated by the world. "The servants must expect just the treatment meted out to their Master, and all has ultimately to be traced up to the world's ignorance of God, and the fact that they hated Him when they saw Him revealed perfectly in Christ. In seeing the Son they saw the Father; in hating the Son they hated the Father." (F.B. Hole)

3. Believers are not to be conformed to the world. "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God" (Romans 12:2). We are not to be squeezed into the mold of this world. We should not look, talk, or think like the world. "The believer must avoid taking his shape from the world around. Unless we are particularly careful we shall find ourselves influenced by and fashioned like the world and given up to its spirit and life." (W.H. Griffith Thomas)

4. Believers are dead to the world. "But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world" (Galatians 6:14). As we learn the reality of this world's departure from God, its appeal and luster should fade away. The Apostle Paul says he glories "in the cross." It was at once the cause of his salvation, and the instrument of his separation from the world. He did not, as some would have us, accept the message of the cross in its saving grace, while denying it in its separating power." (John Ritchie)

5. Believers have their citizenship in heaven, not in the world. "For our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ" (Philippians 3:20). Citizenship entails loyalty. Yes, we are to be obedient to our earthly government, but there is a vast difference between obedience and involvement. Our first allegiance belongs to God and to heaven. "Philippi was a Roman colony. As a mark of special favor, Roman citizenship had been granted to all the free-born citizens of the former Macedonian capital. This was considered a great privilege. Now, apply this to the Christian. Saved by matchless grace, though still living in the world, his commonwealth is in heaven. He is directly subject to the Lord Jesus Christ, and his conduct is to be regulated by God's Word." (H.A. Ironside)

6. Believers ought to have a heavenly mindset, not earthly. "Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2). This involves our daily attitude. Each day the Christian's mind should be set on the eternal matters of heaven, not on the temporary affairs of earth. "You must not only seek heaven; you must also think heaven" (Lightfoot). "The things on the earth are not in themselves sinful, but become so if sought and thought on in preference to the things above." (Kenneth Wuest)

7. Believers cannot be friends of the world and of God. "Whosoever … will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4). Sooner than later, the true believer is faced with a choice. He realizes that he cannot be a friend of the world and at the same time be pleasing to God. "Like a spiritual barometer, this verse registers the direction in which a Christian's life is moving. The test may be put thus: Am I today better friends or worse friends with the world than I was a year ago? Your answer will show the way you are going spiritually. It is not possible to be at one and the same time out and out for Christ and a close friend of the world. When Christians really grow in the Lord and in His Word, they become less rather than more intimate with the Christ-rejecting world system that surrounds them." (Frank E. Gaebelein)

8. Believers are not to love the world or the things in it. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world" (1 John 2:15). Can a Christian love this world system that crucified His Lord? Can a Christian love the things in this world that can pass away in one night? Evidently so, or we would not have been warned not to do so. "That the Apostle passes at once to a warning against love of the world, after mentioning the wicked one (v. 14), is suggestive of his power in and over the world. He therefore uses this system of humanity, in its alienation from God, as a means of enticing the believer from his attachment to Christ." (W.E. Vine)

9. Believers have overcome the world. "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world" (1 John 4:4). Although we may see many around us being attracted to the allurements of this world, we need not succumb. We may feel helpless to resist, but we have a Saviour who has been victorious over this world. "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). "He who is born of God overcomes the world. He possesses a nature and a principle that surmount the difficulties that the world opposes to his walk. His nature is the divine nature, for he is born of God; his principle is that of faith." (J.N. Darby)

—Robert Gessner, Used by permission