CHRISTIANS ARE DIFFERENT THAN THE WORLD

And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said “I will dwell in them And walk among them.  I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”—2 Corinthians 6:16

Writing to Christian believers, the Apostle Paul is reminding them that they are not like the world.  Something is different about them.  He is saying that the Christ-believer is not like those who serve Satan; those who are of the world.  He reminds the Christ-believer that he or she is the temple of the living God and that He—God dwells with them and walks among them.

I want to encourage you today to be aware the God lives in you, and that He walks and talks with you.   He wants to have fellowship with you everyday.  Jesus came and restored the position that humankind had with God in the beginning.  Through His shed blood humanities relationship is restored with God.  However a relationship is two-way, it is between God and you; you and God.  A relationship functions only to the degree that the persons involved are committed to each other.  Our commitment to God is reflected in how we reflect Him to our world.

We can reflect God and His perspectives to the world, every time we encounter people and treat them the way God sees them.  Christ-believers are different than the world.  They are patient, kind, faithful and gentle.  Full of love, joy and peace and are self-controlled.  “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.  And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).

Prayer—Heavenly Father thank You that You have made me into Your image and into Your likeness and that You live in me.  I ask You to help me be mindful that I am not alone that You are with me every step of the way and all through my days, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

 

GOD IS NOT ASHAMED OF SIN

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered in shame" (Psalms 34:4-5, NIV).

 

A friend of mine related a life lesson that the Lord had taught her, “God is not ashamed when she sinned.”  As she related to me, the many times that she had become depressed when she did not always act as a Christian, my mind went back to the days of my childhood.  During the era that I was raised, a child’s behavior reflected on how others viewed his or her parents—at least this was the way my parents taught me.  So, if I or one of my brothers or sisters did not behave well in public then our parents would bemoan the fact that we brought shame upon the family name, and our parents would “never be able to show their face in public again.”  Of course they always did; however, this was so ingrained in our thinking as children that it carried over into our adult lives, and translated into how we viewed our Heavenly Father.     

 

My friend’s life lesson caused me to begin to reflect on the fact that many of our ideas on how God thinks about us are simply not based upon fact; but, rather on a faulty belief system whose biases cloud our view of how God really thinks about His creation.  Perhaps the root of this problem began in the Garden when Eve’s view of God was distorted and she and her husband sinned.  After Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened, they withdrew from God because they were ashamed: God was not ashamed He immediately began to deal with the problem and covered their shame (Genesis 3).

 

God is not ashamed of sin because He covered humanities sin with the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.  His blood sacrifice never looses it power, “And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for our only but also for the whole world” (1 John 2:2).  God still covers sin for those of us who love Him, but at times our behavior does not reflect who we truly are as His children, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). 

 

Today, do not allow the enemy or cultural ideas distort your view of God and how He thinks about you.  He is not ashamed of you.  If you have done wrong, confess it to the Father, repent—turn from doing the same thing over and over again—by faith accept the fact that your Heavenly Father is not holding anything against you—and begin to conduct yourself as a child of the living God.

 

Prayer—Father I thank You that You are never ashamed of me.  Lord forgive for the times that I have thought that You were ashamed of me, cleanse my mind and my heart from false ideas and view points of who You really are, in Jesus Name. Amen.