“Worldliness consists in these three: attachment to the outward—attachment to the transitory—attachment to the unreal: in opposition to love for the inward, the eternal, the true: and the one of these affections is necessarily expelled by the other. Unworldliness is this—to hold things from God in the perpetual conviction that they will not last; to have the world, and not let the world have us; to be the world’s masters, and not the world’s slaves.”
Frederick W. Robertson (1816-1853) English preacher in Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers, compiled by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert (New York: Wilbur B. Ketcham, 1895) 620-621.
Does “worldliness” or “unworldliness” depict your posture?
As Robertson exhorts us, let us “hold things from God in the perpetual conviction that they will not last” so that we use and master them, lest they possess and enslave us! This reminds me of J.B. Phillips rendering of Romans 12:2.
Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.