Your Worldview Matters!

You have a worldview, and it colors how you see the world and how you solve your problems. This article by certified biblical counselor Lucy Ann Moll first appeared here on her website and is used with permission.

 In this short article, you’ll discover:

• what a worldview is and why it matters to your spiritual growth.
• how to reclaim a Christian worldview if yours goes off track.
• the important link between your heart and your worldview.

What Is a Worldview?

A worldview is the framework from which you view reality and make sense of life. It consists of the values—or, your fundamental belief system—that determines your attitudes and desires, and ultimately your actions. It is the sum total of your beliefs about the world.

EXAMPLES:

• A toddler believes she’s the center of the universe.
• A humanist believes the material world is all that exists.
• A postmodernist believes what true for him is truth.

The Christian Worldview?

A Christian worldview is based on belief that the Word of God—that is, the Bible—is true. When you believe the Bible is true, then you embrace the Living Word, who is Jesus. The Bible becomes the foundation of everything you think, say, feel, and do.

To determine if you have a Christian worldview, why not answer the following questions in a survey formulated by pollster George Barna?

Do absolute moral truths exist?

Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?

Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?

Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?

Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?

Is Satan real?

Does a Christian have a responsibility to share her his or her faith in Christ with others?

Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?

Did you answer “yes” to these questions? Then you have a Christian worldview, specifically a biblical worldview. (Some liberal Christians would say they have a Christian worldview but would say “no” to a number of Barna’s questions including the accuracy of the Bible.)

Your Worldview Matters

When you believe the Bible is true, you want your life to show it. You’ll read the Bible and pray – not out of obligation – because you have the life of Christ and He lives his life through you.

Your deepening faith that permeates your entire life:  marriage or singleness, relationships at work and with neighbors and family, your choices, your emotions, and your thinking.

Yet the secular worldview encroaches on every believer like a rising flood, desiring to suck you into its undercurrents. You see it on billboards, TV, and internet ads; you hear it in popular music and many a teen’s slang.

The world’s enticement is one reason a Christian believer might fall into muck the Bible calls sin. Sin is unholy wrongdoing that offends God.

He might be look with lust at a woman. She might crave a shiny Lexus. He might trip into an alcohol addiction. She might lie. He might slander a coworker. She might bow to the idol of materialism.

Colossians 2:8 speaks to empty, worldly philosophies:

See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Reclaim Your Worldview

Christian believers who ascribe to a biblical worldview can become confused and make strange choices—strange for a self-identifying Christian.

EXAMPLES:

• Shanna visits a Reiki practitioner who uses a technique called palm healing by which “universal energy” is said to encourage healing.
• Liz discovers the underbelly of Internet porn and frequents online chat rooms.
• A mother of four young children increasingly uses profanity while yelling at them.

In every case, the Christian has fallen into a secular worldview to solve problems. Shanna looks to New Age for help with emotional pain. Liz enters a sex fantasy world to escape a loveless marriage. In anger the mother uses the coarse language of the times. Haven’t you acted unChristian too at times? Haven’t we all?

To reclaim your biblical worldview, agree with God where your went off the rails. Did you gossip? Yell? Get jealous?

Then repent. Repent is a church-y word that means to “do a 180” and go the opposite direction you were headed. The gossiper starts speaking kindly about others. The yeller embraces a new approach of being “quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry” (James 1:19). The jealous one remembers to be thankful for what he has.

Worldview and Your Heart

In the Bible, your heart refers to your mind, your emotions, and your will. At the heart of your heart is your worldview, or the sum of what you believe. It is “your control center.”

A healthy heart has godly thoughts, godly emotions, and godly actions—all because you have a worldview set on the truth of God’s Word.

May I encourage one important activity to keep your worldview and heart healthy? Read your Bible every day. The Word of God renews your mind.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2, ESV)

It changes the way you think. It encourages and instructs you. It teaches you right from wrong.

It keeps you sane in a world gone crazy.