Most of us have an aversion to holiness.
We think it will make us “weird.” We think we’ll stick out too much in the crowd. We’d rather blend in. There’s more wrong with that than many of us realize.
Most of us just want to go through life without too many hassles. Anything that causes a hassle, such as being pointed out as different, is to be avoided.
To avoid this, we’ve developed the skills of a social chameleon. We have learned to blend in no matter what situation we find ourselves in. We can read a crowd, adapt, and move through without ever drawing attention to ourselves.
In doing this, we give up the very thing we need to confront the brokenness in the world around us – our difference.
Being a Christ-follower demands an absolute loyalty to Christ. Being loyal to Him means we look to Him – and to Him alone – for the meaning and purpose of our lives, for the direction of our days and the values and truths we live by.
All of that comes from Jesus and nobody else. Jesus gives us the power to live in the world as a free people. We don’t need anything from the world. Therefore, the world can’t threaten us by withholding things from us. Just as Paul, we have learned to be content in every situation.
This difference—this holiness lived out—is where evangelism begins. People will want to know why we live such a different lifestyle. Why don’t we do what everyone else does? Why don’t we have the same goals, and seek the same pleasures as everyone else?
Then, we’ll have an opportunity to tell someone (someone who’s already noticed the qualitative difference of our lives) about what Jesus means to us. We get to share the greatest story ever told, and tell someone how Jesus can do the same thing in their lives He has done in ours.
But that conversation won’t happen if we don’t stick out a little bit.
We won’t stick out if we don’t take the call to holiness more seriously than most of us do.
Blending in can cost us more than we know.
