We live in a time where Christians are a little difficult to identify. Now of course we cannot know the condition of another man's heart and we cannot judge for ourselves wether he is saved or not. But even still, we should be able to get a pretty good idea.
How you identify yourself is at the core of who you are. You will either take on the identity of Christ or you will take on the identity of The World. The scary thing is that many of us Christians have begun to look too much like The World.
Francis Chain said, "Something is wrong when our lives [as believers] make sense to unbelievers."
As Christians, the Bible says we, "...will be hated by all men because of [Christ's] name," (Mark 13:13; Matt. 10;22; Luke 21:17). The fact that this is restated in three different scriptures must mean that it holds some sort of importance. And I believe the point has been made pretty clear. The World is not supposed to understand Christians - in fact, it can't. The kind of love that can only be known through God (1 John 4:8) does not make sense to The World. The kind of humility that was modeled through Jesus' life does not make sense to The World. The flesh cannot understand these things.
If we truly seek to live as Christ, we should be radically different from The World. However, in this movement of Modernized Christianity, we have allowed grey areas and compromise into our lives, putting our sins on trial, questioning, "Are they really that bad?" Alcohol, sex outside of marriage, partying, pornography - just a few of the many things Christians have put on trial hoping to justify. We have so many grey areas that we aren't quite sure what is acceptable anymore.
Let me end all of those arguments right here. Send home the jury, stop reciting your testimony and forget about any evidence you think you may have found. We're answering the wrong questions.
The question is not "what is acceptable," but rather, "what is radically different from the world?" How can we ensure that there is no confusion as to who we belong to?
John 15:18-19 says, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
This verse tells us two things. First, because Jesus lived so radically different than The World, it hated Him - so much that Christ was killed by the hands of The World. Because once again, The World cannot understand believers.
The second thing this verse tells us is that "if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own." How scary is that! This is our warning - if the world loves and understands us, we must be showcasing a different identity than we think. For if we looked like Christ, The World would treat us a lot harsher.
It is essential that we remember our true identities, not allowing The World to slowly imprint its image on us. Our entire purpose as Christians is to get The World's attention and bring it to Christ. But how can we do that if we live just as they do? We can't.
The World is searching for something different and they will watch our lives closely. If we cannot offer them something different than what they already have, they will be far from interested in what Christians have to say.
God calls us to be be different. Radically different. So different that The World is on it's toes and everyone is dying to know what it is that makes us so different.
I hear so many people that say, "I don't care what people think of me." But I do. I care if people look at me and all they see is The World. Identity is everything. I pray The World will look at me and not see me. I pray that they see Christ.
