1 John 2:15, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." One of the most searching tests of whether we are truly profiting from the Word is this: What effect is it having on my relationship to the world? The Word of God calls believers to a path of separation--a separation not of physical distance, but of moral distinction. The same grace that brings salvation, also "teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly passions." (Titus 2:12) The man who profits from Scripture, is the man who learns to view the world as God views it: ensnaring, wicked, fleeting, and hostile to Christ. The world is not neutral--it is at enmity with God. (James 4:4) It lies in the power of the evil one. (1 John 5:19) Its pleasures are deceitful and damning, its philosophies are godless, its aims are selfish. The cross of Christ is the great divider, and the believer, being crucified with Christ, is also crucified to the world. (Galatians 6:14) To profit from the Word is to have the world's luster dimmed, its music silenced, and its alluring dainties seen in their true light. Scripture renews the mind and reorients the affections. The more one is filled with the Word, the more he sets his heart "on things above, not on earthly things." (Colossians 3:2). The heart disentangles from the world's snares, and the believer begins to live as a pilgrim and stranger. He is in the world but not of it. He engages in it without being entangled in its deceitful meshes. He works in it without worshiping it. He does not follow its fashions, absorb its values, or crave its applause. He lives for a Kingdom that cannot be shaken. But this separ