Tides

The ocean is my favorite place.  I can sit on the shoreline for hours.  I don’t fully understand why or how, but there’s something about it that calms me like nothing else can.

You know what happens when you sit for hours near an ocean?  When the tide is coming in, you either move or get wet.  Inch by incremental inch the water gets closer and closer.  If you fall asleep on a beach chair, there’s a pretty good chance you could wake up in some water.

A worldly lifestyle is a lot like that tidewater rising.  Inch by inch we move toward the comfort and convenience of fitting in and doing life like everyone around us.  It doesn’t happen very fast.  It takes time to go from a place of closeness with God to a place where He’s on a shelf.  We wake up each day and we take one step closer to those around us – one step closer to the cultural norms of the modern-day lifestyle.  Just like that incoming tide, we get a little more immersed and step in a little deeper in each day.

Prayer time slips, yet our time in front of our phones and televisions increases.

We begin holding back things the Holy Spirit is prompting us to share and instead say the things that everyone expects of us in conversations, on social media, by text.  Slowly, the tide comes in.

We commit ourselves to activity after activity and spend less time reading and studying the Bible with the justification that we’re so busy.  The water is getting deeper…

You know the scariest part of all this?  I’m not the only one sliding away from what is right and what is good.  So is my Christian neighbor.  I begin a new series on Netflix and feel conviction until I hear a few folks from church talking about the same show.  Wow!  You too?!  There’s my validation that it’s actually okay.  And that song that I ought not know all the words to?  Everyone else is humming along so it must be okay.  All the kids are going to the middle school dance.  Everyone at my daughter’s school wears that.  All the boys make those jokes.  All the kids have those apps.  It’s simply our culture; this is what life looks like today.

No.

This is what the world looks like today.

It is not what the life of a child of God should look like.  Do you ever wonder why God set such different standards for the Hebrew children in the Old Testament?  Do you think it was to make their lives more difficult?  More likely it was so that they would be set apart and recognized as different – peculiar (Exodus 19:5, Deuteronomy 14:2, Deuteronomy 26:18, Psalm 135:4, Titus 2:14).

It was pretty obvious if one of the lineage of Abraham stepped out of line.  Of course, they had pretty clear-cut rules on what to do and not to do.  Oh, wait.  So do we.  Romans 12:2 sums it up:  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. But how do we know what is good?  How do we know what is acceptable in His eyes?

We have the Holy Spirit to remind us what we need to do and what we need to stop doing.  Yet some of us are still not convinced.  Where’s the danger in a little mingling with the world?  What’s the harm in fitting in with my friends?  Because honestly, they’re mostly Christians too.

The danger is this:

When we see a pregnant teenager today, they could very well be from a church-going family (1).   Those entering rehab clinics were attending church just a few years back.  Many Christian teens are not saying no to drugs or alcohol (2).  Women of faith are having abortions almost as often as those who are not (3).  More than half of our youth are leaving the faith not long after they leave home (4).  About one third of Christian marriages end in divorce (5). In short, our families are falling apart.

We Christians are paying a dear price for not setting ourselves apart, and we shouldn’t be surprised.  We are told that it is impossible to live for God while loving the world (1 John 2:15-17).   But you know what we are also told?  That living for the world while trying to live for God is as though you are waging war against your own soul. Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul. (1 Peter 2:11).

We are not meant to love the world. We can’t expect the Holy Spirit to thrive in a body that is surrounded by sin.  This is why so many of us are anxious, worried, downtrodden, depressed, and stressed!  Hebrews 12:11 describes the peace of God that comes when we surrender to His commands.  All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.   Aren’t you excited about that?  Isn’t it wonderful to know we are heading the right direction?  Even though the road will be hard and people are going to look at us funny, the prize at the end of this race is so worth it.  And the peace along the way is exactly what God knows we need to make it through.  It is invaluable.

Today’s Challenge:  Today’s devotion was intense for some of us, so take heart.  Yes, we are called to be separate, but this is a good thing!  The Creator of the world loves us enough to care about our choices!  

Spend today in the verses below from God’s Word and while doing so, consider not the cost of living a life set apart, but the rich blessing He gives as reward. 

1 Peter 2:9:  But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

2 Corinthians 6:14-18: Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. “Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says the Lord. “AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you. “And I will be a father to you, And you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” Says the Lord Almighty.

Galatians 2:20:  “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

John 14:21:  “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”