Do Not Conform To The World

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Conforming usually seems the right thing to do when one finds himself overwhelmed by the presence, influence and power of others. The tendency is to always blend in when it seems that nobody will listen when you talk. When there are fears that one’s views will be seen as medieval then conforming to prevailing trends appears to be the best way out. But that is not who believers should be. We are not saved to become opinion followers but rather opinion formers especially when opinions in the contrary are out of harmony with the word of God. It should not matter to us whether our standpoint is accepted to the generality of people or not once it is what God demands of us then it should be our stand.

Beloved, this unbelieving world can hardly agree with you because you do not belong to the same kingdom. Of course light and darkness are never the best of friends. The kingdom of light which you belong to has principles and rules different from those of the world.

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Unfortunately, we see believers compromise their belief because they do not want to be ridiculed and called names. As the Bible counsel, …let God be true, but every man a liar (Romans 3:4). That should be the dictum of every believer in this regards. A believer who conforms to the world stands the risk of been led to hell by the world because that is where the world without Christ is heading. So to have your heart completely transformed, you should cut yourself off from the world. This is necessary so you can be weaned from the source of tempting prompts to sin.

One of the principles of fire fighting is to cut off one of the three needed elements (fuel, oxygen and heat) for fire to occur. Once any of them is cut off, the fire dies. This is similar to what a believer achieves when he cuts himself off from the ways of the world. He reduces considerably his sources of temptation. When I became a believer and needed to stop drinking, one of the things I did was to cut off from friends in whose company I go drinking following this up with prayer worked for me.

Put away old things, videos, music, magazines, and any other material that fuels your lust and inordinate desires and living an overcoming Christian life becomes easier. For as long as these sources of temptation remain with and around you, you will always be like the ground that has so much thorns on which the seeds where plants in the parable of the sower (Luke 8:5-15). The thorns would not allow it to grow.

A Christian’s love for God is known by his relationship with the world. If a Christian continuously courts the world then his love for God is in serious doubt because a friend of the world is hardly God’s friend (James 4:4). People often ask how can we live in the world and not be friends with the world? When the Bible talks about friendship with the world, it is not necessary referring to having a relationship with people who are not believers but to the fact that we should have affection toward the evil ways of the world. For instance we are not expected to dress in everything we see others wear especially when the clothing does not meet the demands of our faith which is that our nakedness must be covered and as much as possible non-seductive.

As believers, I believe that though we must not necessarily become friends with unbelievers, we must be overtly friendly with them otherwise we will be shutting ourselves out of the opportunity to preach the gospel to them and make the gospel we preach more acceptable. We definitely owe this erring world so much love and there is no love without friendliness (not necessarily friendship).