Thursday, November 05, 2009
Set Apart
Mark Roberts said a mouthful recently:
We are not to do different things necessarily (how) but we are to do things better (way). Sometimes when I see that phrase "set apart," I like to think "better."
Now, that does not mean that I can hammer a nail more efficiently than a non-Christian carpenter, or that I write better (heavens no!) than a non-Christian. But it should mean that there is some quality about how I approach things that makes what I do different, in a fashion that people simply find "better." Maybe it is my attitude, or my smile.
My question is, how do you make everything you do "better?"
Sometimes we Christians get hung up on the rights and wrongs of discipleship, forgetting the deeper purpose. Like the Israelites, we are called to be set apart from the world around us and devoted wholly to God. The Christian life is not a matter of following the right rules so much as it is living fully for God’s purposes and glory. So, for example, I will refrain from dishonesty, not only because it is against biblical teaching, but also and more importantly because it honors God and sets me apart from this world.I love his choice of phrase in the second paragraph, "the way we live." Not how we live, but the way.
As Christians, we must always remember that we are to be set apart from the world in the ways we live, but not relationally. In all we do, we are to be “in but not of” the world. We live as holy people in the midst of the world, exemplifying the love and truth of God so that our neighbors might be drawn to him through our example.
We are not to do different things necessarily (how) but we are to do things better (way). Sometimes when I see that phrase "set apart," I like to think "better."
Now, that does not mean that I can hammer a nail more efficiently than a non-Christian carpenter, or that I write better (heavens no!) than a non-Christian. But it should mean that there is some quality about how I approach things that makes what I do different, in a fashion that people simply find "better." Maybe it is my attitude, or my smile.
My question is, how do you make everything you do "better?"
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