Day 3397 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

2 Corinthians 6:17 NIV

Should it not stand to reason that in order for a difference to be made a difference must be done?

As a people, a body, a church we claim to be heralds of the very same truth which we say set us free, we too proclaim that we’re of a similar mindset to He who made such an opportunity a hope for which we now contend with all our heart, all our mind, all our strength for all our lives as if we are truly here only working unto the Lord for the glorification of His most glorious Name. And yet there seems always this blurring of lines done in order to make ourselves look more palatable to a world engorged with this idea of inclusivity and open-mindedness.

Tell me though, what’s more inclusive than a Savior dying for all of us, and then what’s possibly more open-minded than our believing in that gift so vastly and unashamedly that we too have now embraced the call to carry our cross as we contend that upon it is found our own testimony of just such an accomplishment as life found beyond the death of a life we’ve already lived?

You see, among my few remaining fears as found within the ways of this world, of which I am daily raging to shake as if the last remnants of a ruined life so that who I’ve been doesn’t hinder who He’s now called me to be, those fears are all figments of the same: The fear of God. It’s an utmost reverent respect for both the undeserved kindness He’s shown me within this hope I have in a Heaven to call home, respected because I wholly admit it is indeed wholly undo, but also for the wrath that His mercy has quelled that I am still in all honestly entirely due.

For I have well-earned His vengeance, and yet because He chose instead to extend a peace offering in the midst of the war I was waging against Him, in Christ I’ve now found that all these other fears I feel are found only in the way things are falling down all around. Because it simply needn’t be quite so complicated or discombobulated or simply divisive as it’s all become down here. And yet because such is indeed the lay of this land upon which we’re called to war now for the souls who may have yet gone unaware of their share in His Son, again, the lines are drawn.

But that begs the question as to why the blurring of them if He’s made the distinction between life and death deathly evident.

What fellowship has light with darkness? We know all of this! Of what covenant can come between corruption and compassion? Can there be any merging of mercy and mayhem? Should we truly seek out the blending of betrayal and benevolence? Is our job to make Him seem more kind and caring by caring about doing only what this world says is kind? Indeed, are we to make Christ ‘cool’ so that those who worry about tepid mediocrity are more open to taste and see that He is good?

If so, let me ask and please do consider, if we present ourselves as lukewarm servants of a lukewarm faith in a lukewarm Savior, who among us is to be eager to go further into such a bland outpouring of what amounts to next to nothing? For you see, we’ve become a church of outreach, a great undertaking and one that each and every one of us should seek to assist in achieving. Fishers of men is still a truly admirable and fully intentional aspect of this faith we share.

But the problem is becoming that we’re becoming all things to all people without the point and purpose of winning some to Christ. We just want them to like us so that we can still fit comfortably in this world for however long we’ve left to be here. And to that outlook, comfort and safety as always easily assumed within, we risk watering down the Living Word so much that none are able to have their hope quenched, simply because we’re beginning to seek too many ways in which to quench the Spirit so that the truth He speaks isn’t as offensive as it needs to be.

Yes, needs to be.

Why? Because if we’re never offended then we’re never moved. Now granted, there could have been easier ways to learn and grow and approach a deeper understanding of such things as life and faith and a purposeful melding of the two into a life that is indeed well lived and worth something. But alas, we are a stubborn and entirely obstinate people who know only to learn the big lessons in the hardest way possible. And thus leaves things like offense, affront, argument, disagreement, even the dissolving of relationship to be the manners in which we tend to have the best opportunity to both learn and thus also to teach or inspire.

Because again, if we are to make a difference, we’ve to do a difference. We have to walk differently if we’re to show the world that we’re headed somewhere worth considering against the common complacency of a world living in utter denial. We have to talk differently if we’re to say something that someone may listen to in this world of such noise that everybody just tunes everything out. Indeed, we have to be different if we’re to live a life different enough to make someone curious as to why the difference is so undeniable in us.

Yet we’re sadly failing to quite a heartbreaking degree in this regard. Be it a matter of social media mattering too much or our prideful preference for mega-churches and rock-star preachers or just this unyielding need for worldly agreement, we’re casting our lines as in these lives into the wrong direction with the wrong intention and thus fishing for the wrong outcome. We may be winning people to church services with coffee bars and concerts, but in that we’re forgetting yet again another entirely simple idea:

What we do to catch them is what we’ll have to do to keep them.

That’s why we’re called to be different in verses like this one here in 2 Corinthians. Because there needs to be some sort of distinction between us and the world we claim is living in the sin we’re adamant to fight against. How can we fight against the brokenness of the world is we’re willing to bend the Word that’s meant to help? How can we make an impact for the Kingdom of Heaven if we live and act and speak as if hell is a bit too heavy a topic to discuss?

Indeed, how are any around us to be inspired to seek the sort of selfless surrender, one that we humans abhor, in order to accept their part in Christ’s eternal salvation if we don’t live and preach and breathe like there is a danger found in staying the same? Yes, how can we ever consider our staying the same and still seeking then to blend in when we claim the Name that is above all which calls us to have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness?

Is it not simply because such is just easier? That it’s undeniably safer? That we’ll face absolutely no opposition should we opt to allow for an obliviousness to the otherwise eternally obvious?

Friends, this world is going down hard and we’re either encouraging it along or standing apart and asking whomever we can to reconsider their doing just that. For everything we do, everything we say, it all sends a message that is entirely insistent upon one of two utterly opposed ideas. We are either saying, through both actions and words, that it’s okay to do as the world does, or we’re saying, through both actions and words, that such is so unacceptable that we’re willing to suffer just so others might reconsider.

But where’s the suffering? Where’s the hurting? Where is the loss, the risk, the reprimand and ridicule? Why does the world seem to not mind us? I ask only because they utterly hated those who went before us. I mean the days of the lives of those Apostles were a veritable bloodbath. We all know that Christ was crucified. But those who openly and unashamedly proclaimed the Good News of that gift of the Gospel of Jesus Christ weren’t exactly celebrities!

They too met brutal ends, at least according to historical tradition.

And so why are we now so willing to avoid the same risk? Why are we so afraid to be different? I mean the world has stopped crucifying people, so we don’t really have to worry about that one all that much, though this morally twisted humanity could always bring it back! We’re not really hanging people anymore, so that’s off the table too. Beheading is pretty much limited to only a rare occurrence, and even that in places that few of us will ever venture.

So are we just worried about being hated and thus feeling like we don’t fit in with the world anymore? Are we scared of losing friends for looking silly for believing in what most won’t even consider? Are we worried about feeling misunderstood, being excluded, losing jobs, losing relationships, losing opportunities at something else we’ve long sought to gain in this world? Indeed, are we so stinking worried about our lives in this world that we won’t live differently so as to help others see that they end and that when they do, we’re judged and the outcome cannot be good unless we’re in Christ?

He is our only hope, but so too is He the only hope of every other human alive today. What are we doing to set up that meeting that just might change a live, save a life? What are we doing to speak life by sharing the Way that is the Truth that is the Life? How can we think we’re doing anything if our lives are so normal that nobody has any reason to think we know of a hope they’re not already assuming they know all about?

Because you see, that is precisely the problem in this place. Everybody thinks they’ve got everything already figured out. Everybody knows everything. But nobody lives like they know Jesus, and thus we find our need to now be so different that this world of comfort and inclusion cannot stand the thought of us showing up to their parties and picnics because they don’t want to hear the truth anymore.

But sadly we tend to speak so little truth that the world doesn’t mind keeping us around. We’re a people perfectly at ease not rocking the boat, just entirely then willing to watch it sail off the edge of reality into eternal oblivion. When did we settle for such a heartless existence as our not being willing to be different? And if we are willing to be different, then what are we doing today that’s considered weirder than yesterday?

Friends, we should make no sense to this world. Those around us should think we’ve lost our minds as they watch us walk away from everything everyone else is running after. We should be living like we’re onto something different, a hope we know we can’t find here, a fact that’s left us not looking for hope here anymore. I have no hope in this world as I know that this world isn’t going to become a better place. It’s a dumpster fire so filled with hatred and division and darkness destroying lives that my last hope, my only dream, my entire existence is now hanging upon trying toward Christ in whatever way I can.

And since I know His truth, His Way, His Word are all indeed different from the life I’ve lived walking in the ways of this world according to the lies we’ve all believed, I know that I have to now live so differently from how I did in the past that I don’t even recognize myself anymore. And by some undeniable miracle, it’s working! I think back about things I’ve done in the past and it’s like reading about a stranger. And I love that! I want more of that! I want more because it’s to me now evidence of a testimony that proves that I am different and fighting to be even more so tomorrow.

Because staying the same means only staying here and if I can’t accept that for myself then nor can I consider settling for that same for anyone else either. And thus I will speak the truth, share the Word, serve the Christ and sever whatever I need in order to honor Him better.

I just can’t understand any other way anymore. Because simply put, if I’m not changing for the better then I can’t help change anything for the better either. And I just can’t accept that. Sure, I can’t do a whole lot to make this world better or encourage others to flee it like I’m trying to. But I know a guy. I know the GUY! And so I’ll walk out of this world pointing to Him however I can.

After all, He came to this life to die, kind of shows you the impact doing something different can have, doesn’t it? We all came out of the deal pretty good because of it! Let us not then let such a victory stop with us but rather insist that everyone else knows that we don’t belong here, and that we couldn’t be more thankful for that!

Because the point of this life isn’t to be accepted by a world that won’t accept Christ. It’s to live a life that He says is acceptable, and that just doesn’t look anything like how this world is going about it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold