-We are aliens, new creations who are other-worldly, different from the rest of the world because God Himself has remade us into totally new and different people, and now we are like Him. The two ways in which this is most notably visible is that our lives are (or sure as heck should be) characterized by righteousness - we do everything right, and truth - everything we know, think, believe, say, and do is founded upon and in accordance with what is true. Unlike the nations, who are walking in darkness, living lives which are rather devoid of truth.
-And this is precisely where our path diverges from the world. One of the first things on which we must focus, assuming we are all in for this new life - and this ties back to helping the Body of Christ grow - is to get rid of any falsehood in our relationships with one another and embrace this high standard of speaking truth with one another, the same truth and love to which Paul referred back in Ephesians 4.15. This is one essential ingredient to building true community. But recall that the very core of the brokenness associated with the old man was rooted in deceit, the obfuscation of truth, deceiving others, deceiving self - living a lie and walking in THE Lie, the advent of which gave birth to all the brokenness in the first place. And so in laying aside and jettisoning the deceiving-and-deceived old man, we are getting rid of all vestiges of the Lie. We are purging it from our lives and from our midst, because we are new people, entirely new creations, and we have been recreated to increasingly reflect this One Who made us and is remaking us to be like His Son, Who is the embodiment of Truth.
-Specifically, we relate to fellow members of the Body of Christ truthfully. Granted, this particular bar may not appear to be such a stretch for those of us who have grown up in the relatively upright moral climate of the US. Ours is still fairly well steeped in a Judeo-Christian ethic - more than likely we can tend to take truth in relationships for granted. We all learn from childhood that honesty is the best policy, do we not? Truth may no longer be absolute, but it is still ingrained in our culture. Here honesty is rather assumed (unless you're dealing with a crook or a politician, which of course can sometimes be the same thing), and dishonesty when found out is normally subject to some form of chastisement or other even more adverse consequences. Not so with the nations. Go someplace where the Gospel has not permeated the culture, where it has never been, and you will find that dishonesty is actually somewhat the norm. The lie reigns supreme, and corruption is rampant. People simply don't default to being truthful with one another - they cheat, they cut corners, they take bribes, they deal dishonestly whenever it suits them - far more often that what you see in the places where evangelical Christianity has gone. And this pervasive dishonesty of course flies in the face of community because you cannot trust your neighbor. Thus we see one huge way that a local assembly of Christ-followers will stand out, shining like a city on a hill. Honesty. Doing what is right. People just don't live and relate to one another like that among the nations. But we did not learn Christ in this way, Paul says. We are truly divergent. We are part of a Body which must trust and depend on one another and come together for the sake of a greater cause, the Great Commission, for the sake and honor of our King, this One Who called us into His Kingdom and out of darkness. Truth. Let our lives be marked by this, in all our dealings.
No comments:
Post a Comment