DAD'S RAMBLINGS -- BEING DIFFERENT

DAD'S RAMBLINGS – BEING DIFFERENT

"Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'I am the LORD your God. According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their ordinances.'" (Leviticus 18:1-3)

The people of Israel were to be different than the nations around them. They were "peculiar," to use the terminology of the Apostle Peter, who wrote that God's people are "a holy nation...a peculiar (special) people" (I Peter 2:9) because they belong to a holy God. The word in our text translated "ordinances" can also be translated a "customs" or "manners." As a peculiar or special people, they were not to do the customs of the nations in which they lived. This had a broad range of application, but in Leviticus 18, God especially addresses moral issues.

As pilgrims walking through this world, we live in cultures that do not always reflect the heart of a holy God. God tells us to not be conformed to this world (Romans 12:2). The Phillips paraphrase says, "Do not let the world press you into its mold." There are strong pressures to conform to the ways of this world that are contrary to our holy God, and it is so easy succumb to the desire to be accepted by the world which demands that we do what they do. We don't like to be different – but we are. We are citizens of heaven, and live according to heaven's rules.

We are called to be different because we serve a different master than the rest of the world. We have a different King. We serve a holy God who calls us to holiness. And remember that holiness means to be "called out" or "separate." That does not mean that we live as hermits, nor that we don't have any contact with ungodly people. When the Apostle Paul wrote that we should not to keep company with with ungodly people, he did not mean that we are isolationists, since then we would need to go out of the world (I Corinthians 5:10-11). What it does mean is that we are not to be conformed to the world's attitudes and philosophies, practices and customs which are contrary to God's ways. As Christians, we march to the beat of a different drum. We sing a different tune – the song of heaven. We are different because we serve a holy God.

Love, Dad