Sunday, January 21, 2018

Are You Conforming to Christ?

In our modern culture, conformity is often used as a kind of bad word. Within the walls of congregations, conformity is our goal. But how much thought do we put into the idea of conformity? Is too much conformity bad? Is not enough conformity a sin? When we consider the self-sacrifice Jesus talked about in Luke 9:22 or Paul talked about in Romans 12:1-2, we quickly see that “conforming to His image” (Romans 8:29) is how God plans for us to become like Him, not like the world.

People conform by peer pressure, persuasion, the law, or even more subtle ways. But God designed us to look for groups to mimic; remember, Adam couldn’t find a group to “fit in” prior to Eve. Psychologists agree that human touch and affection are high on our needs list, which means we’ll do whatever we need to to get it.

That’s where conformity to the image of Jesus will help everyone experience “the touch of God,” by receiving encouragement, love, compassion, forgiveness, respect, etc. (Philippians 2:1-5). There may be times of rebuke, but always in love, and only when emptily needed.

The danger is it we rarely conform to Christ’s level of service—instead we conform to laziness, selfishness, and division. Very few give up everything for someone else who may or may not appreciate it. Very few will beg God to forgive someone who has hurt  them. Very few will go out of their way to do something wonderful for someone else without ever getting recognition for it. But Christ did!

Isaiah 53:6, “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way….” Sheep wander off for different reasons, but logically, they must think there’s something better over the next hill. Spiritually speaking, that is happening a lot. Many people leave the church for greener pastures. When asked, “Why did you leave?” a large number of them admit there wasn’t room for their way of “doing things” where they were. While this sounds like potential attitude for false teaching, what if it isn’t? James said in James 1:19, “but everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger….”

Consider how the words of Paul in Romans 12:3-5 describe something that allows each of us to bring a little bit of ourselves to the body of believers. Here he reminds us to not to “think more highly of [our]self then [we] ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. For just as we have many members in one body and all members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, or one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”

When it comes to the way we serve within the walls of a congregation, we need to be careful not to simply impose “my way or the highway” on people who may be sincerely looking to be part of the body. We know that God has a will He wants us to follow, but we have to be cautious of labeling my will is God’s will, then condemning others who won’t conform to my will. After all, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for the imposition of their will disguised as God’s will on people (Matthew 23). Instead, let’s be mature as we “consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Hebrews 10:24).

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