set apart

“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

Romans 12:1-2 MSG

I was doing my devotional when I came across this scripture. It really hit me hard.

How often do we become well-adjusted to our culture?

As I was reading, I realized that well-adjusted was exactly what I had become.

I was becoming more and more like my worldly friends and less and less like my Christian friends. On the outside, I looked the part, I dressed the part, I acted the part. But on the inside, in my thoughts and in my heart, was a person that God surely was not proud of. I was a person that no longer was pursuing God but was pursuing my human desires.

Here’s the thing- when the world begins to think that our lifestyle makes sense, there is a spiritual issue.

The way we live, talk, and walk should look crazy to others. They should not understand why we don’t do the things they do or go the places they go. It’s easy to want to fit in and be “normal”, but we were not made to be normal. We were created to be set apart.

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.” 1 Peter 2:9

We are chosen. We belong to God. He has called us out of the darkness, so we have to live like it! Our purpose is to turn this world upside down, so why do we so often think we can do that by fitting in?

It’s so easy to get caught up in winning the approval of the people around us, but in reality, if the people you surround yourself with are not Holy Ghost filled, then they will always try to pressure you to lower your standards and change your beliefs. We live in the world but we are not of it. Godly friends and mentors are so important in order to stay on track in your walk with God.

However, we cannot live in a “Christian bubble” with people of like-faith and ignore the lost souls that need to hear the gospel. It is absolutely necessary to tell others about Jesus. This means that you are going to be around an unholy culture. You will fit in with your Christian friends, but when you leave the church and go out into the world to fulfill the Great Commission, you cannot give up on your beliefs. You are not going to fit in.

This culture will belittle you, degrade you, pressure you into doing unspeakable things, until you are without hope and you’re wondering how you got to the place you are now and you believe you’re too far gone. But Jesus…when He gets ahold of you, He will train you to be a priest, a king. You will be a part of His kingdom. In God’s eyes, you were born to be royal. And the world does not like that.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen youout of the world. That is why the world hates you.” John 15:18-19

Jesus was hated by the world. It’s because He spoke the truth. If we are really speaking the truth, our culture will disagree with us. We will be laughed at or even persecuted. But to save just one person, to lead just one person to Christ, makes it all worth it.

We cannot water-down the Word of God to agree with the theologies of our society or even our own friends. The truth must be spoken. The gospel must be preached. We cannot fit in. We must stand out if we want to experience the kingdom of God. We must be set apart.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 NIV