Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord; do not touch any unclean thing, and I will welcome you.” 2 Corinthians 6:17 (HCSB)
As a teenager, whilst holidaying in Kano, Northern Nigeria, I started watching a game show on SKY TV in the hotel where I was lodged as a particular contestant was being introduced to the viewers. The presenter first introduced this grinning man as a Pastor and then cheekily added to the mocking laughter of the studio audience that he’d been married three times. Even as a youngster, I instinctively felt uncomfortable with what I was seeing, because the name of the Lord was being cheapened before a world that is always quick to dismiss His claim upon our lives.
Fifteen years later, whilst on another family holiday in Sweden, the news that was then shaking the nation was the story of another Pastor who had seemingly made a habit of knocking off his wives whenever he tired of them, only to marry another wife later on. He seemed to have taken to extreme God’s injunction that He hated divorce, and so decided that being a serial monogamist and a murderer to boot is a novel way out of his marital troubles. Again, this was not the kind of publicity that glorifies the name of the God we claim to serve.
These two examples point to a greater problem in the body of Christ and is the reason we struggle to be effective witnesses in drawing people to Christ – we increasingly struggle to differentiate between what constitutes the Church as opposed to the world. The two are now so intertwined that we no longer know where one ends and the other begins. Whilst retaining a semblance of spiritual authority, we have nonetheless relinquished the moral authority that authentic living of the Gospel in a fallen world confers on us. Therefore, to our cry of ‘Repent and be saved’, the world now scoffs and retorts, ‘Physician heal thyself’, proving that as God’s only agent of change, the Church is fast losing whatever relevance it has with the unbelieving world.
Many in the Church erroneously believe that the way forward is outdoing the world at what they do best. So, they take on the toga of becoming the vanguard of the liberal path advocating secular humanism and all what not at the expense of declaring the righteousness espoused by the word of God. It is no surprise that the returns for selling their souls to the devil for the pottage of worldly acceptance is that they reap the disdain of the very people they seek to convince. Even the world, which knows that you can only judge a tree by its fruit, also patently acknowledges the fact that no honour can emanate from a people steeped in dishonour, as like always produces like.
So, to impact our world the way God always intended, we need to heed His direction to come out from among them and be separate or holy. Wisdom tells us that you don’t save a man who fell into a pit by jumping in after him. Both of you will perish. Rather, you throw him a rope and help pull him out. This is the honourable task God has given the Church and we can only succeed if we do it His way. So, let us return to the Lord and be holy and He will receive us and use us to glorify His name.
Prayer:
Lord, your word warns us not to be conformed to the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Help me to be holy as you are holy, so that my separated life will glorify your name and shine your light into the darkness of the world. Amen. |
