As a follower of the Lord, I order you to stop living like stupid, godless people. Their minds are in the dark, and they are stubborn and ignorant and have missed out on the life that comes from God. They no longer have any feelings about what is right, and they are so greedy they do all kinds of indecent things.
But this isn't what you were taught about Jesus Christ. He is the truth, and you heard about him and learned about him. You were told that your foolish desires will destroy you and that you must give up your old way of life with all its bad habits. Let the Spirit change your way of thinking and make you into a new person. You were created to be like God, and so you must please him and be truly holy.
Ephesians 4:17-24
Can others tell that you are a Christian because of the way you live all week long or by the fact that you go to church on Sunday morning?
In the United States for many years the cultural norms supported those who were believers in Christ. There was only praise for those who lived honorably before God and obeyed the moral standards established in the Bible. Then you could not tell a believer from a non-believer in Christ by simply looking at the way they lived. Many people lived moral lives but were not Christians.
Now it is different. If you follow the standards of the culture around you, you must violate Christian principles and Biblical teachings. If you are in step with the world around you, you must be out of step with Jesus.
The problem today is that many people claim to be citizens of Heaven but are living like Hell! They actually are pretty easy to identify unless the person you are looking at is on the other side of a mirror! When you look at yourself in the light of God's standards it is easy to justify, excuse, and otherwise ignore the fact that you are living in the sin of following the world and it's ways of living instead of following Jesus!
So here is the problem. If the culture around you supports God's ways of living then you can be fooled by your good life into thinking that you are a follower of Jesus when you are simply a follower of the culture. When the culture contradicts the Bible at almost every turn it is easy to dismiss the Word of God because "everybody is doing" the thing that the Bible warns you not to do.
The solution is this: Live according to the Word of God, not by the culture whether the culture is good or bad. Let your understanding of everything in this life come from God not other men, even righteous men. Listen to the Holy Spirit and let Him be the drummer as you march to His beat! You will often be out of step with the world around you, but you will never be out of step with Jesus.
"Lord, let me hear the drumbeat of the Holy Spirit today. And Lord, give me the courage to ignore the world around me as I march in Your parade! Amen!"
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