Unlike Minded
Theme of the Week: Whose Fences?
Ed Gungor
Monday, July 17, 2006
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Key Bible Verse: And you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out to pasture(Malachi 4:2). Bonus Reading:
1 Corinthians 12:12-21
We all want to be discipled into a pure form of Christianity, not someone's brand of it. We want to be accountable to true godliness, not a human kind. But because most of us want to belong, it's easy to just give in and try to meet the expectations of others. The problem is, we ultimately lose when we do that.
Christianity isn't supposed to be a retread Eastern mysticism that forces people to be absorbed into some great cosmic sameness or oneness.
But sameness makes it easier for us to tell who the insiders are. Just as tight jeans, western boots, and a huge silver belt buckle are marks of a cowboy, certain other external attributes are fancied by some as the marks of Christlikeness.
Actually, it's easier to make Christianity about man-made rules. But unless you already "fit" the predetermined set of personality traits set by the Christian culture to which you belong, you'll be pressured to be something you aren't. Christianity will feel restrictive and hold little joy for you. Satan loves that. He wants us confused about what real Christianity is so that we live in a synthetic, kissing-up belief system that is powerless.
—Ed Gungor in Religiously Transmitted Diseases
My Response: Can I value believers who apply Scripture differently than I do?
Adapted from Religiously Transmitted Diseases (Nelson Ignite, 2006) by permission.
Copyright © 2006 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
Click here for reprint information on Men of Integrity.
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Lord, make me aware of the cultural blinders I bring to your Word, and please keep me from becoming a modern Pharisee.
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