Living For Jesus (Part 1)
Living For Jesus (Part 1)
The lifestyle of the world is getting increasingly worse. People are doing many evils today in public that would have been shamed even 20 years ago. The world no longer seems to have moral standards.
But Christians do. We are to have separate standards from the world. Romans 12:1-2 says,
"I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (ESV)
In this passage, Paul calls us to do two different things: not to conform to the world and present ourselves as a holy sacrifice to God. There is a lot to unpack about this passage, so we will be covering it over the next two weeks in a two-part miniseries — and I might also tie in Sunday's verse of the week post as well. So in this post, we will be covering the first thing Paul tells us to do:
Do Not Be Conformed To This World
As Christians, we are not to conform to this world. We are to live a lifestyle that often will go against what the world thinks is the norm. And sometimes — well, a lot of the time — this isn't going to be easy.
Hopefully you already realize that "easy" isn't the word to describe the path of a Christian. In fact, Jesus compared the Christian life to carrying a cross in Mark 8:34 where He said,
"....If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."
It is easy for us to follow the world's thinking and conform to people's perception of morality, but if we truly wish to follow God, we cannot follow the world. In his book, James dealt with some believers who thought that they could live half in the Christian life and half in the world. In James 4:4, he bluntly calls them out on this when he says,
"You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God."
Whew! That is a hard truth! But it is the truth. God is full of righteousness, and sadly, the world is not. The perfection that was there in the beginning of the world has continued to degenerate ever since the Fall, and wickedness is now increasingly prevalent in society. Thus, to be living in the ways of this world full of wickedness is to be separated from a righteous God.
We cannot conform to the world's standards if we wish to continue in God's favor, so we must put away our earthly desires, as Paul so aptly phrases it in Colossians 3:5. We have been called out of this world to live for the Lord and shine His light into the darkness around us, so let us continue to walk in the light!
Let's Pray:
Dear Lord,
You have called us out of this world to follow Your will, but the temptations of worldly desires still stubbornly hide in our minds. Help us to put them away and live solely for You. Let our lives shine light into the darkness of this wicked world.
For Your glory and our good,
Amen
Related Song:
Upside Down — Patch the Pirate
Don't forget to check back next week to find the second part of this miniseries!