Some may ask, What is the world? It would be difficult to find a term more inaccurately defined than "world," or "worldliness"; for we are generally disposed to define worldliness as being more involved with the world than we are ourselves. The Word of God, however, has, with perfect precision, defined what "the world" is, when it marks it as that which is "not of the Father" (1 John 2:16). Hence, the deeper my fellowship with the Father, the keener will be my sense of what is worldly. This is the divine way of teaching. The more you delight in the Father's love, the more you reject the world. But who reveals the Father? The Son. How? By the power of the Holy Ghost. Therefore, the more I am enabled, in the power of an ungrieved Spirit, to drink in the Son's revelation of the Father, the more accurate does my judgment become as to what is of the world.

It is as the limits of God's kingdom expand in the heart, that the judgment as to worldliness becomes refined. The keen and exquisite sensibilities of the divine nature recoil from it; and all we need is to walk in the power of that nature in order to keep aloof from every form of worldliness. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" (Galatians 5:16). Walk with God, and you will not walk with the world. Cold distinctions and rigid rules will avail nothing. The power of the divine life is what we need. We need to understand the meaning and spiritual application of the "three days' journey into the wilderness" (Exodus 8:27), whereby we are separated forever, not only from Egypt's brick-kilns and taskmasters, but also from its temples and altars.

—C.H. Mackintosh