The world won't follow Christ as the crucified One. At the death of Christ, the whole orderly system down here got stamped by God as under judgment, and responsible for the death of Christ. By the cross, the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Nothing is so important as for Christians to take the place they ought to be in, of entire separation from what God, in the Scripture, calls " the world." As to our bodies, we are to take care of them in order to serve the Lord more; but there is such a thing as the lust of the flesh and of the mind, to be watched against.
I got all my blessing by the cross; but, to enjoy it, everything must be viewed in the light of the cross, so as to have God's thoughts about it. I have to walk as a witness that nothing is worth thinking of but the crucified One. I know the world as a judged thing, and how can I seek anything in it? Once I was in it like a child seeking pleasure, following a butterfly. What an astonishing thing for an immortal creature to be chasing a butterfly But when God came in saying, " I have quickened you and given you Christ, and now you are to be occupied only with the cross of my Son, and you and I can both be occupied with the same thing,"-how wonderful the change!