by One of the big questions that Christians have to face is when to fit in and when to stand out. Christians are called to separate living. God realized that the effect others have on us can be tremendous. We were created to have others that we can have relationships with, but as Adam and Eve proved, those relationships can get us to do things that are contrary to God’s plan. So God commands that we separate from others that do not share the same gospel, and to be set apart to Him.
This really shows up in a topic we discussed before about what to wear when going to church. Should we dress down because it doesn’t matter to God what we wear and the world dresses down for such things? How about what we watch for entertainment? Do we watch nothing on TV since the advertisements and shows are bad; should we watch something that contains some problems, but is on the whole ok?
Every day we are asked to either separate or conform. When someone swears, when someone tries to get us to laugh at a bad joke, we are encouraged to do the same. Even the office gossip or the complaining about the job are things that we are supposed to conform to because everyone is doing it.
We Christians are called primarily to glorify God– and there lies the test. We are to live lives that call attention to Him. That means that we are going to have to separate in some of the areas that we have been conforming. We are to be pointing people to Christ and that means that a lot of our actions need to change. We can’t call people to things above and continue to live lives that are no different than those around us.
On the same token, if the thing that we are doing draws attention to us instead of him, than we aren’t really being separate for him, but for us. In this case, it could be better to conform.
