Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? 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.” Therefore “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.” “I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:14–18)The phrase, “marching to a different drummer” is often negative and sometimes hints at pity and even ridicule. Few people want to be thought of as “different” and “out of touch” with everyone else. Yet that is exactly what God calls His children to be — separate, different.
The drummer I’m supposed to march to is Jesus Christ. When He calls the tune, then my life will be different. I might eat, drink, sleep, work and do many other things just like everyone else, but I will fit in with the people around me when it comes to motivations and many actions.
This morning’s devotional reading regarding this passage had a prayer. It asked the Lord to “increase my comfort zone with You so much that what the world thinks is less important to me.”
This is a good prayer. It asks that I become so adapted to being the person God wants me to be that I feel no stress at all when I am around those who do no share my faith and lifestyle. With that, I’d feel no need to verbally defend my faith and can keep my mouth shut if God wants me to. I’d never worry what others think of me, nor would I be blatant and rude about my faith, or worse, try to hide who I am.
Yet every person has things happen in their life that challenge this need to belong. Any sort of rejection will do it, such as parental abuse, being laughed at for any reason by your peers, broken relationships, divorce, being fired from a job, infidelity by a spouse, and so on. This is where the conflict comes. Each Christian struggles to know they are “okay” when life tells them otherwise.
God’s answer to this is that we fully realize our acceptance with Him. This is not earned or deserved, but a gift, lavishly and freely given.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace . . . (Ephesians 1:3–7)Accepted in Christ by grace — and if that were not enough, God pours out spiritual blessings here on earth and in heaven, makes me holy and blameless, adopts me into His family, and redeems me from a life of sin. I am fully and freely forgiven because of His grace and because of Jesus Christ.
There are times that I am in a room full of people and feel as if I do not belong, that no one accepts me because my way of thinking is foreign to them. At times this has troubled me. However, God is changing that. He is making me feel more comfortable, perhaps more aware of His acceptance. I’m finding that what He says about me is enough.
With His grace, I can be in that same roomful of people and not be concerned about what they think of me. Instead, I’m more interested in them, and in what they think of Jesus.
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