Be Different

My last post here prayerfully challenges women to be different, not because we are women but because we are Christians. This post still shouts the same, BE DIFFERENT! And may it shout into our ears louder.

I lost the draft of a supposed blog post a month ago. I can’t remember the exact words anymore or the flow of my discussion there. Nonetheless, the incidence that brought me to write that supposed “blog post” keeps me unsettled. And I know I will be until I do something about it; at least through this blog.

That incident is this: It was my uncle’s funeral wake and relatives were gathered together. My sister uttered some words that made my heart sank into discouragement. She said that our cousin (who claims a believer of the Lord) now drinks beer with her unbelieving husband and an unbelieving cousin’s boyfriend. I was discouraged to hear that but was even more disappointed when she told us their justification; she told us that my cousin believes (and so is she) that there are pastors now who are “modernized”. And “modernization for them is believers and pastors drink (and so act) as the unbelievers do in order to reach them for the Gospel.

I know that this incident and this view is now rampant. Even in our church, a “church leader” and a Sunday School teacher even encourages carpenters renovating the church building to drink with him inside our church building. Yes, inside the church. And these people grieve me much. They do not know what damage/s they do for the body of Christ and what judgment from God they are storing for themselves. Where is the difference? Where is the new creation? Or should I ask the question Is there really a new creation?

That one reason why a church of God at this present moment has so little influence over the world is because the world has so much influence over the church. (C. H. Spurgeon)

The Bible tells us that if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (II Corinthians 5:17). There are so many passages and so many reasons in the Bible why you should BE DIFFERENT. Let me just give four:

1. There is no in-between, no gray; just either light or darkness.

This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. (I John 1:5-6)

If indeed you are a new creation, you should BE DIFFERENT, different from how this world thinks, different from how it lives. Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. (I John 2:6)

2. There is no shining crooked star.

So that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. (Philippians 2:15-16a)

This passage is about doing without grumbling but take note children of God in a warped and crooked generation, you should shine like stars in the sky when you hold firmly to the word of life and do what it tells you to BE DIFFERENT and be blameless and pure. The Bible never tells us to be like this depraved world that you may shine like a star among them. It doesn’t and will not tell you to be like them so you could win them.

If indeed you are a new creation, you should be different, different from how this world thinks, different from how it lives. If you live in the light, you will shine like a star - not by walking in the darkness but by walking in the light. BE DIFFERENT!

3. There is no bad works that glorify God.

In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. (Galatians 5:19-21a) Obviously those deeds are acts of the flesh and therefore won’t give glory to God. Why compromise and do the very things that will not honor God? And read the passage again, just in case it doesn’t strike you and take a look at my emphasis: let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Have you read that you have to be like them so they may become like you and thus, you and they give God the glory? Then why is the need to compromise and act as if God needs your strategy in soul-winning? And why contradict the Bible with your strategy?

If indeed you are a new creation, you should be different, different from how this world thinks, different from how it lives. If you live in the light, you will shine like a star - not by walking in the darkness but by walking in the light. And if you walk in the light, you will let your light (not their darkness) shine before others. These are deeds that mark you DIFFERENT.

4. There is no unholy child of the HOLY HOLY HOLY GOD.

Are you an obedient child of God?

As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. (I Peter 1:14) If you are a new creation, the old is gone. Peter tells you that you should not conform yourself again into that old you. Why?

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.^" (I Peter 1:15-16, emphasis mine)

If indeed you are a new creation, you should be different, different from how this world thinks, different from how it lives. If you live in the light, you will shine like a star - not by walking in the darkness but by walking in the light. And if you walk in the light, you will let your light (not their darkness) shine before others. And you shine blamelessly because you just reflect what you are called to be - you are called to be holy because He who called you is HOLY HOLY HOLY. The world is not holy; so you should BE DIFFERENT!

My brethren, let me say, be like Christ at all times. Imitate him in "public." Most of us live in some sort of public capacity—many of us are called to work before our fellow-men every day. We are watched; our words are caught; our lives are examined—taken to pieces. The eagle-eyed, argus-eyed world observes everything we do, and sharp critics are upon us. Let us live the life of Christ in public. Let us take care that we exhibit our Master, and not ourselves—so that we can say, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me." (Charles Spurgeon)