Last week I received an email request to help promote an event on campus which was described as "basically a guy who does spoken word to the glory of God."

I was intrigued, though wary. The email had a link to some videos, so I headed on over to YouTube, and this is what I saw:

I just wrote this post on the importance of knowing your own sinful misery in order to have a vital prayer life. John Bunyan was my springboard, but tonight I'm reading J. C. Ryle. Though writing 200 years later than Bunyan, Ryle drives home the same theme of understanding your spiritual depravity, particularly in the context of giving ourselves to spiritual disciplines. Read this:

Do you feel as though your prayers are often "formal," "cold," and "lukewarm"?

If Bunyan's right, it's probably because you are not sensible of the depth of your own sin and misery. In other words, your prayer life is likely cold and dead because you don't see the extent of your need to go to God. Sure, you might run to Him when you have a crisis to be rescued from: illness, stress about school, heavy traffic, or some other uncomfortable situation. But these things will only bring you to God periodically and selfishly. The question is, Are you aware of your constant, complete dependence on God because of your sinful misery? Do you feel a perpetual need to call upon God to sustain you in the midst of your battle with your sinful flesh? Do you live in the mercy of Jesus Christ? And if not, why not? Because you are not sensible of your sin.

Lately, I've been seeing a glaring reason we have little to no sense of our sinful misery. And that is that we are worldly.

Now, I suspect that's a vague and mysterious word to our ears. Worldly. But it's really quite simple. Worldly = World-like. Like the world.

But what does it mean for us to be like the world? Here's an idea…