Making a Difference in Our World:
A Clarion Call to all believers in Jesus.
As a student of the Bible, I seek here to ask readers of this article to help us come to terms with a nagging question arising from our study of the holy writ. It’s about a theme that runs through the Old and New Testaments. It looks like just a few Old Testament people managed to pass the litmus test, while a vast majority of the people failed. Jesus, the Son of God came down in human flesh to show the way — both in teaching and practice, yet we don’t seem to get it.
Here is the background to my question:
After the fall, God decided to pursue fallen humanity. Everything that we know about the world and heaven came from God. He initiated it all. The Creator took the initiative to reach the world through one man - Abraham and his descendants, Israel.
God called Abraham out from among his people and country to a distant land and entered into a covenant relationship with him. God promised to bless Abraham and make him a blessing to the world. But God and Israel were constantly at variance with one another.
God’s issue with Israel was their failure to keep their part of the covenant, and be different from the world around them.
God wanted to be their ruler, but Israel chose to have a human king like their neighbors. God wanted to be their God expecting them to serve Him alone, but Israel turned their back on God - crafted the golden calf in the wilderness and bowed to Baal in Canaan.
In the New Testament, the story is the same. Jesus called his followers, including you and me, to be different. Jesus was different - not in physical appearance. He actually dressed like the other Jews; nothing about his physical appearance marked him out from among his disciples. It took Judas Iscariot to betray him with a kiss, to his potential killers.
But Jesus was different in his out-of-the-world messaging, and ethical standard. He was counter-cultural if you will. Jesus was killed because he dared to be different. All of his disciples but one, died as matyres.
How many Christians are willing to be different today? We love to keep up with the Joneses! Everybody is doing it; why can’t I?
Some, however, know what it means to be different - in workplaces, skin color, and language. Consciously or not , we react to something or someone different from us. We do approach such people with caution because they speak a different language. Sure, there are cultural differences here and there.
Jesus, however, was rejected and killed by people who grew up in the same cultural environment with him, all because he questioned their religious traditions, and would not dance to their tunes.
Early in his ministry, Jesus would withdraw with his twelve disciples, away from the crowd, and begin to teach them, sharing with them the mysteries of the kingdom he had come to inaugurate. His kingdom he said, is not of this world.
Recall Israel rejected God’s rule and chose to have a human king, and how their kings led them to worship strange gods.
The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew chapters 5 - 7), focuses on differences in the perspective of citizens of his kingdom and the Jewish world. The main thrust of his teaching, for them, is to be different. Jesus spelled out three areas the disciples are called to be different:
First, in Character: We are called to maintain a distinctive Christian character as highlighted in the Beatitudes - Matthew 5: 3-12.
Paul brings the messaging home to us as Christians: Ephesians 4: 17-21:
Second, In Life Ambition: We are called to have a kingdom mindset — reflecting a Christian attitude to material wealth and possessions. Jesus makes it clear that one cannot worship God and money together (Matthew 6: 19–24).
It goes without saying that the god the world is worshiping today is money!
The question is how can we be different here? How can Christians stand up and refuse to bow to mammon — the ubiquitous idol we call money? How do we engage in the business of earning a living without succumbing to the overbearing lure of materialism and inordinate cravings for money?
Thirdly, In our Relationships: Our relationship with Christ should impact our relationship with other humans. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Finally, how can we be different within the prevailing culture of greed, political polarization and socio-economic tension in our world?
Brothers and Sisters, this is food for thought. We can make a difference. The apostle Paul tells us how: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2).
