Can one gain the whole world and not lose their soul?

friend of said:

Or is gaining friendship with the world automatically "put you at God's displeasure"

Click to expand...

1 John 2:15-17

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

If you seek God's will for your life, the desire to gain the whole world won't be there anymore and it may seem to hard to imagine but His will is a whole lot better! You may well chase after everything this world has to offer, yet be miserable at the end of it. Why? Well, not to mention the eternal consequences, it's because you'll always want more...


God bless

Best to not try to find out - just believe what Jesus said.

If one stores up their treasures on this earth, they will have to work hard to do so, and will be serving their master - money - rather than serving Jesus. There simply isn't enough time to serve two masters, or enough space in your heart. So choose one: Jesus, or riches.

The opposite to storing up your treasures on this earth is to store up your treasures on the NEXT earth. This is encouraged by Jesus. People often say, "do good things without expecting reward." That seems more righteous, but if that were so, Jesus would not have commanded us to store our treasures on the next earth at all, would He? Nope. So don't let people tell you not to concern yourself with heavenly treasures.

Whether or not you are wondering if you, yourself, can store up your treasures on earth or not, or if you're asking in regards to someone else, here is some advice:

Whoever is concerned with the treasures of this earth, should read Matthew 6. Heck far, just read the whole Matthew 5 - 7. Then do a topical study on what gets us rewarded in heaven: the supposed 5 crowns, and other various things that get us rewarded, such as persecution.

Jesus told us, also, to do these things to get rewards in heaven:
1. Alms. (That means good deeds. This can be giving to the poor, volunteering in a soup kitchen, giving possessions away, etc. If you're doing a good deed for someone, chances are it counts.)
2. Prayer. (Yes, prayer! By praying continuously, we store up good treasures in heaven. Just as a tip though: when I think about praying for the sake of rewards, I feel weird, and i struggle to pray. So i purposefully forget about this, and just try to pray to God as much as possible anyway.)
3. Fasting. (This one is difficult for me, iv'e never fasted before. But I encourage anything to earn rewards in God's kingdom.)

Anyway, I hope this has been helpful. God bless you.

I'm thinking Christ is the only one who succeeded in gaining the whole world without simultaneously losing his own soul.

friend of said:

Or is gaining friendship with the world automatically "put you at God's displeasure"

Click to expand...

You have to see love and hate from God's perspective first off.

God's loves and God hates. When God loves someone He gives them a preferential place in covenant with Him, and when He hates He does not give them a place inside His covenant promise.

Therefore, we can see love as preferential and covenantal, and hate as outside the promises or that which is at emnity with God.

When we look at our view of the world in this light, the preferential place, our love, is first for God, and then for God's people - those within the covenant promise.

Is hate some kind of emotion where we have negative feelings about those currently outside of God's covenant. No. Absolutely not, although we don't step over those who are in covenant with God get to them.

However, we aren't in a covenant with the world, our allegiances lie with God and His covenant people.

The only reason we can pledge allegiance to the flag with clear conscious is because we are pledging as a nation under God, because our covenant is first with God....

We can vote, we can listen to music, watch t.v. have friendly associations with the unsaved, but the preferential place of our allegiance is always with God first and foremost. If it is ever between God and the world we choose God.

But we still live IN the world, we just aren't of it, our covenant isn't with this world or the things in it... it's with God first, His people (our brethren) second...

friend of said:

Or is gaining friendship with the world automatically "put you at God's displeasure"

Click to expand...

The ways of the world will always take us away from Christ and thus friendship with the ways of the world is always enmity against God.

Colossians 2:8-23
See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.


When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.


Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person also goes into great detail about what they have seen; they are puffed up with idle notions by their unspiritual mind. They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.


Since you died with Christ to the elemental spiritual forces of this world, why, as though you still belonged to the world, do you submit to its rules: “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? These rules, which have to do with things that are all destined to perish with use, are based on merely human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.

The whole world?

friend of said:

Or is gaining friendship with the world automatically "put you at God's displeasure"

Click to expand...

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." - Matthew 6:21

What is it that we treasure? What is it that really matters here?

Do we want power? Glory? A name for ourselves?

Do we want to serve others? To kneel and be with the broken people, the hurting, the unwanted?

What do we want to be?
What does it really mean to be human?

These are the important questions. It's not about fear that God is going to strike us down at any given moment. It's what really matters to us, and what should matter?

Taking the cross seriously, what does it mean to live here, right now, with our fellow man and all God's creatures.

I find that when I pray, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." I am praying not only for mercy because of my sin, I am praying that I learn how to desire contrition. For I am caught between the madness of my flesh and all its selfish wants and desires and the sanity of God's grace calling me to die, and in dying, live.

-CryptoLutheran