Going Against the Grain!

Standing out from the crowd, swimming upstream, or however you want to state being different, has always been a difficult proposition for the believer. We are essentially different from the world around us already by virtue of the transforming work of Christ’s Spirit within us and His work through us. Jesus himself called His disciples to be salt and light. Light dispels the darkness while exposing those who walk in it, and salt has qualities that act as an agent counteracting the deterioration and decay of worldly philosophies and practices. Our world is becoming unbelievably decadent and increasingly morally corrupt. There exists in our society little restraint, and that is exactly why you and I remain in this world as a restraining presence. The pace at which the world has spiraled downward makes ones head spin. Even more mind-boggling  is the rate at which the church has embraced the world’s ways of thinking and compromised to accommodate worldly indecency in dress, speech, music, media, appearance, to name a few. The clarion call of the Scriptures is to come out from among them and be ye separate saith the Lord, touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you . . . (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). Being in the world is not equivalent to being of the world (John 17:14-19). John, furthermore, in his epistle is adamant that we are not to love the world, neither the things that are in the world. The world is passing away and the lusts thereof (1 John 2:15-17). In addition, Paul forthrightly demands that believers stop being pressed into the mold of the world (Romans 12:2).  

  Not everything is acceptable - there are many things that are unacceptable for the believer - things that are worldly! Stand up, stand alone, stand firm, stand out . . . for Christ!!
 
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. . . That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;  Philippians 2:12-13, 15