Viewing Your World

Fifty years ago, a person’s “world view,” that set of values and morals and sense of responsibility or lack of it that a person’s life decisions are built out of, was “set” by the age of 18 or so. Twenty years ago, the age had dropped to 15 or so. Now, I think it has dropped to 13 or so. The more information is made available to children, the earlier the concrete hardens.

Child Evangelism Fellowship has informed their supporters and disciples that a conversion to Jesus as a Savior after that age at which a world view is established is very unlikely. The statistics they suggest to be reliable state that 63% of believers were born of God before the age of 18.

The choices you make today to change your values or behavior are more difficult than they were between the ages of 4 and 18. The values and behavior that are entrenched in traditions, habits, rituals or addictions are the most difficult to improve.

But you are a disciple of the King of Righteousness. He is calling you to righteous thoughts and actions. He intends to call you to account for how well you change under His influence. Rightly so, too, because He doesn’t just send you off into righteousness; He invites you into it, and empowers you to walk in it.

So then, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you, enabling you both to will and to act for His good purpose. Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world.
(Philippians 2:12-15 HCSB ©®)