What has the world to offer?

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Teresa9

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Do you see the world as an empty place with little to offer, but that which is good and exists in the heart?

Let me know your thoughts and contemplation on this.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
I think it’s all about love.

I think the world is a simpler place than we all make it to be.

We were created to love and be loved.
…and that’s plenty.
 
God created the earth and all that is in it and called it “good”. Therefore it is very full and has much to offer.
 
The world offers smiling babies, weddings, funerals, happy family gatherings, the sweet evening breeze stirring your hair, and the warm sun on your skin, incredible artwork, fantastically elegant mathematical equations, giant balls of burning fuel flying through space, a visit from a fellow parishioner when you are in the hospital, there is simply so much, and yet…

I don’t know, some days I whine a bit, and wish I were in heaven already and with God. I know that I am supposed to always want to go to heaven, and I do, but the earth just ain’t that bad as long as I keep the right attitude. God’s hand is everywhere around us to be seen, and it is almost a slice of heaven right here. I sometimes feel that it is my own lack of being perfectly redeemed that is the issue and that God is pretty darn close to us already down here on earth. Just my quickie thoughts, nothing too deep here.
 
The world serves as a nurturing place for us to learn to love if we so choose.
 
the world and everything in it is created by God, reflects His glory and therefore is good, and exists to give us the means to cooperate with the redemptive power of Jesus Christ and work out our salvation and the fulfillment of the Kingdom, which exists here on earth.

Even the evil in the world, which entered by the consent of the first humans to the deceptions of the devil are used by God to contribute to our salvation.

To deny that the material creation is good denies God and leads to the heresy of the Manichees.
 
Thank you everyone for your thoughts and comments. Why are we told to reject the world and keep our sights on Heaven and Jesus?

The world is not only a place where there is love, it doesn’t always nuture love, it sometimes intends to destroy it. The pursuit of worldly things doesn’t gain us eternal life does it? Isn’t this a broken world in comparison with what it originally was at Creation? Yes I agree the world is a gift as are our lives, that all of creation is God’s and therefore is good, but the world God intended is very different to the world we live in, isn’t it? We are first told to love God , then each other as ourselves. When I think of this and compare it to this on the whole loveless world, a world of death and the self, how does this world equate to what God’s will desires? There is a difference in appreciating and praising God for the life He creates and the earth He has created, from then contemplating what humanity has done with these great gifts.

By the way, someone at least once on all of the threads I have read always says the word heretic or heresy …why? I don’t think people are thinking or believing against the church, but it is good to think, contemplate and ask questions with the Holy Spirit at the forefront of all we think etc, I am sure the Pope does this or how does he arrive at his doctrines for the church. I’m no heretic, I am asking a question. It is my thoughts and I am asking you for yours, neither my thoughts nor your thoughts are wrong, it is opinion, it is thought. In the respect of each others thoughts is love.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
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Teresa9:
Why are we told to reject the world and keep our sights on Heaven and Jesus?
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It is a matter of priorities. One focus should always be on God and the world always taken in that context.
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Teresa9:
The world is not only a place where there is love, it doesn’t always nuture love, it sometimes intends to destroy it. The pursuit of worldly things doesn’t gain us eternal life does it? Isn’t this a broken world in comparison with what it originally was at Creation?
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As people have free will, necessary for love, they can choose not to love and unfortunately some do. Some people choose to focus entirely on themselves and probably lose themselves to Hell in the end. A people desiring to love, we must learn to judge when those around us are not being loving so that we may be careful around them and not be influenced negatively by their actions.
 
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Teresa9:
Why are we told to reject the world and keep our sights on Heaven and Jesus?
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I know some people on this forum complain about scripture quotes, but I think a big part of the reason we are told to reject the world is because of what the word “world” means or how it is used in various scripture contexts. Here are a few samples of its use:

From 1John
15 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.
16 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.
17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
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From Romans
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
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From James
James 4:1 What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members?
2 You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask.
3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
4 You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God
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There is also some great stuff in St. Paul, maybe 1Cor about wisdom and knowledge. There is the way the world thinks and is wise, but that is nothing. Then there is the spiritual wisdom, that’s the good stuff.

Look at the James quote and the 1john quote and see what the world is standing for. It is murder, greed, lust, pride, etc. We are not to pursue these bad worldly attitudes. We are to follow the way of the Spirit, you know, self-control, love, gentleness, etc.

Another way the word “world” might be used is by spiritual writers, who are concerned about any attachment to the material world that can keep us tethered like a bird tethered to the ground and it can’t fly. So, they are concerned about the person who might love listening to music so much that they would do a venial sin (say fight with their wife or yell at the kids) in order to listen in “peace” to their records. There is nothing wrong with music, unless you let it tie you down and keep you from perfect love and obedience to God.

So it is all about what sense of the word “world” is meant.

Oh, yes the world is different from the non-fallen creation, but there is still so much good to be seen that can draw us to God by considering it. Remember you can see the face of Christ in your fellow men, even when they are sick or depressed or hurt or in jail. It is in the attitude, how we take in what we see here in the “world”.
 
What has the world to offer? Some good and some bad, including:

Laughing children.

Purring kittens.

Tinkling wind chimes.

Cool breezes.

Love.

Judgment.
 
The world is a place where both good and evil reside. The good we see is an imperfect reflection of the Heavenly radiance of God, beautiful indeed, but hard to find in it’s perfect form. The evil eminates from Satan and Hell, pulling us downward, like gravity. Only through Christ can we escape it’s grasp.
 
Teresa9 said:
Do you see the world as an empty place with little to offer, but that which is good and exists in the heart?

Let me know your thoughts and contemplation on this.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
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🙂
I see the world as a beautiful place where there are many wonderful people, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, drops of rain, beautiful snow flakes, green grass… all of God’s creation. So much love God put into it for all of us. I do wear rose color glasses periodically to overlook the evil.🙂
 
along with ‘pug’, i would submit that the admonition from scripture to ‘hate the world’ doesn’t mean the earth and creation. this is good, created good, and redeemed by God. the catholic position is one of ‘redeemed creation’, which is yet another reason i’m glad i converted. protestants tend to be very ‘world - evil, God - good’ which is a form of dualism very popular in greek thinking.

so - catholic philosophy is that the world around us, though fallen and filled with the works of the enemy, is also redeemed and being constantly renewed by our Father, whose ‘mercies are new every morning’.
 
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Teresa9:
Thank you everyone for your thoughts and comments. Why are we told to reject the world and keep our sights on Heaven and Jesus?

Teresa
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The world referred to here is not the physical world in itself, which in itself is good, but rather, rejection of inordinate attachment to worldly pursuits, fame and pleasures, which distracts man from thinking about God and spiritual things.

Gerry 🙂
 
Dear friends

Thank you all for your comments and lovely thoughts on this. I suppose sometimes it is easier to look to what is wrong with the ‘world’ than what is right with it. I remember when I was a child, people didn’t lock their doors, toys could be left out in the garden, old people were not afraid of going out after dark and children could play out in the street and nothing ever happened to them on the whole. Family values were upheld and life was protected more than the throw away consumer society of today. Now it is a very different world, drugs, crime, fear of crime, unsafety, exploitation…etc

Reading all of your comments restores faith in humanity and the humane. It’s easy to let the bad parts of life weigh you down.

Please all pray for peace on this earth and love between all peoples. There IS so much beauty in the world and there IS love in the world, if only we could spread it into every heart.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you all

Teresa
 
T.A.Stobie:
The world serves as a nurturing place for us to learn to love if we so choose.
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T.A.Stobie, Would you say this is why we are here? The world is our time to come to “love” as Jesus wills for us? For those who choose to follow this path we are rewarded with eternal life?

This has been my understanding but I got to this understanding intuitively. Otherwise I cannot make sense of why this mortal period exists.

I find it difficult to find material on just why we are here. Why God didn’t just begin with the ends.
 
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Mijoy2:
T.A.Stobie, Would you say this is why we are here? The world is our time to come to “love” as Jesus wills for us? For those who choose to follow this path we are rewarded with eternal life?

This has been my understanding but I got to this understanding intuitively. Otherwise I cannot make sense of why this mortal period exists.

I find it difficult to find material on just why we are here. Why God didn’t just begin with the ends.
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Yes, I feel that God as Love wanted to increase love so he created an environment where Love was possible, created us as human beings with free will (necessary for love) and has asked us to love as forcing love contradicts the essence of love. Those who choose to love will choose the ultimate place of love, heaven.
 
Yes T Stobie, you have to be right about LOVE being the whole reason for our existance and love being what brings into the existance of God in the afterlife, there is no other way to justify suffering, if you know what I mean.

God Bless you and much love and peace to you

Teresa
 
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him may not die but have eternal life.[John 3;16] Thats how much God loved the world. We are in this world but we are not of this world. 👍
 
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