To my families surprise it had become true. My wife and I represented those people that every family seemed to have at least one of that were a little different. Once we discovered what God truly desired, our faith had become ‘radicalized’. From our perspective, our behavior and attitudes were a normal reaction to being filled with the Spirit of the living God, the creator of the universe. However, our families thought differently.
While we haven’t gotten any better, the family has gotten used to us and some have even joined us. As I read the Bible I find lots of encouragement to live a radical life. The Apostle James wrote, “22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do. (James 1:22-25)
The Gospel of Jesus Christ should turn not only your life but the world upside down. Christian values and principles are so contrary to the rest of the world that everyone should immediately see the difference.
The Apostle Paul, like James' instruction above, tells us that we should be different from the rest of the culture. This is how the Message Bible translates Romans 12:1-2.
“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.”
Fitting in well to the culture is over-rated; God wants more from us!
