The Need to be Different

“Christians make a difference in this world by being different from this world;they don’t make a difference by being the same.” from Unfashionable by Tullian Tchividjian

“It’s too hard to be unique it makes more sense to be like everyone else. Going upstream in a downstream world isn’t fun anymore, how are we supposed to reach the other side! Standing out in a crowd will only get you in trouble so blend in.”

This sad thinking that’s for sure but it’s a train of thought that seems to have swept the world more and more. Christians have gone the easy route in the name of “reaching the unsaved” or “tolerance” and we have wound up similar in many ways instead of different.

In order to live differently later for all eternity, we need to live different now. Wow what a novel idea. In order to make a difference we need to be different. Oh, we’re on a role here. If what we see out there on TV, in the movies, in the public is “normal” behavior we need to make the decision, “I don’t want to be normal.”

It seems like Christians are a dying breed but we don’t have to be. We need to stand strong by our convictions even if the decision gets us mocked, tortured, or looked down upon. As much as people try to fight it, what we stand for can make a big difference if we allow it. Such as love instead of hate. Peace instead of hostility. Encouragement instead of putting people down. Patience instead of road rage. Thankfulness instead of ingratitude.

They say if you put any and all politicians, regardless of their affiliation, in a bag and shake them up they will all come out looking the same. This should not be the way it is for Christians and non-Christian people as well. In John 8:59 we read where Jesus purposely slipped through a crowd, not to become one of them but to go through them. It reads, “Then they (the Jews) took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them and so passed by.”

The only way we should be in or of the world is to do it in the way Jesus did, just passing by. We should be disappearing in the crowd not because we are blending in with everyone else’s behavior but because we were going through as Jesus did and making a difference along the way. At the start of the journey we make look a little worldly but at the end of the adventure we need to come out different.

In our quest to be different we often become like one of the crowd acting like everyone else. The best way to be unique is to find out who you are in Christ and live that out in your life to the best of your ability. Don’t accept the world’s mold that it hands you.

Although the world doesn’t know it, it needs the difference we can make. The difference in attitude, the way we conduct ourselves, the way we work or play, the way we raise our kids, drive our car, treat others and so much more. We need to make up our minds that we don’t want to be normal if what we see in the world is suppose to be normal. We need to be different, am I wearing out that phrase?

We need to be like Jesus, the One who truly made a difference and still does today. Invite Him over, rearrange the furniture in your heart and see the difference He truly can make!


© 2009 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing