{"id":801,"date":"2019-10-06T15:16:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T20:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/?p=801"},"modified":"2022-03-08T07:22:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T13:22:05","slug":"things-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/06\/things-of-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Things of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"681\" height=\"511\" src=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Web-Verse-58-Mark-8-36.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-802\" srcset=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Web-Verse-58-Mark-8-36.jpg 681w, http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Web-Verse-58-Mark-8-36-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px\" \/><figcaption> \u201c<strong>For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?<\/strong>\u201d (Mark 8:36) <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cHave you ever desired the things of the world? Everybody has; that\u2019s part of our nature. It\u2019s okay to want stuff here in this world. The important thing is to not desire the <em>things<\/em> more than pleasing God and to do what is right, according to God\u2019s Word. Should you lie, cheat, or steal to get something? Of course not. Should you want what \u201ceverybody\u201d else has? Not if it doesn\u2019t please God. Because we live on this earth, we have to have \u201cthings\u201d to live. But we have to be content with what God gives us and not make things our primary focus. What is to be our focus? We should have our eyes set upon Jesus. We must be careful not to allow the desire for the world (see Mark 8:36: <strong>For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?<\/strong>) to keep us from serving and pleasing God. We will see how King Solomon learned this lesson as we begin Ecclesiastes \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;\u2026No matter what possessions we acquire while we live on this earth, one day everyone will die, and we can\u2019t take any of those possessions with us. Solomon, with all of his wealth and fame, came to this realization. As he looked back over his life realizing everything gained in this life was worthless, he wanted to share with everyone what he had discovered. He recognized his sin in turning his heart from God to the things of this world. Solomon learned to be careful what he promised, for God would hold him accountable, and he finally realized that man cannot understand God, but the \u201c \u2026 <strong>fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge<\/strong>\u201d (Proverbs 1:7). By learning to fear Him, Solomon could know Him \u2026\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[Excerpt from Year One Quarter Four Lesson 10, Ecclesiastes 1-8: The Vanity of Man, now available through Rock Island Books (<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/rockislandbooks.com\/the-biblical-path-of-life-year-one-quarter-four\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.rockislandbooks<\/a>).] <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cHave you ever desired the things of the world? Everybody has; that\u2019s part of our nature. It\u2019s okay to want stuff here in this world. The important thing is to not desire the things more than pleasing God and to do what is right, according to God\u2019s Word. Should you lie, cheat, or steal to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[319,318],"tags":[48,149,375,186,243,373,374,209,376,377,254],"class_list":["post-801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpt-from-the-biblical-path-of-life","category-picture-with-verse-and-blog","tag-ecclesiastes","tag-fear","tag-gain","tag-god","tag-knowledge","tag-mark","tag-profit","tag-solomon","tag-soul","tag-things","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1636,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions\/1636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}