In Opposition to Common Culture

      We resist the world every day. Every day we who are called Christians rely not on ourselves, or our teachers of the past or parental guidance from our early years. Why, because if we are still in love with the things of this world we are no good to Christ. Daily we resist the entrapments of those things that would constrain the Holy Spirit within.  THE very resurrection itself is the exact anthisesis of death, it could not hold Christ in the grave, and we should not be held in anything that is a bondage and contrary to the Holy Spirit's deliverance and living power within our lives.
     Are you in fear? There is perfect love that  will cast  it out.
     Are you in doubt? There is faith.
     Are you in sadness? There is the joy in the Lord.
     Are you surrounded daily by people, bosses, structures of corporate life that exasperate you on the inside, and tries to  define who you are and make you a conformist?  Then take heart, all of these things are examples of world pressures that we resist and ask God to help us in to be what we are supposed to be.
     Freedom, is what the embodiment of Christianity is all about.  It is the counter culture that was Christ.  Was he afraid of the Romans or their Government?  No.  Was he afraid to be with Lepers? No. Or tax collectors, or sinners or just about anything else you could think of that goes against popular thinking.  Our culture is stagnant, dead in it's ability to elevate anything of life's true values.  Just try navigating the world of internal politics of a job. and you would have to begin to become a lier, a gossip, a kisser upper or worse complacent and unaffected which I think doesn't exit.  It is impossible to love the world and Love Christ too.  So where do we begin  in navigating these treacherous waters daily.  On our knees asking continually to be empowered by something different.  Yes we cannot become radical or separatists or fight the system, but have to be in the world but "not of it."  Hard to do.  We will have to do what Christ did, and obey a different set of rules from a different kind of kingdom.  His kingdom was light, not dark, proclaimed, not hidden behind gates with security to keep those from within from escaping.  Or in other words cultish.  Note the popular show " The path."
    So today as you go about the things you have to, like me, ( and sometimes I feel like a rebel and want to take up arms!) but I don't I suffer in Christ knowing that he said we would be blessed when persecuted for his names sake.  So also, do not be molded any longer by the pressures, people, or structures that are acceptable but, take the freedom Christ can give, forbear what you have to, and trust even though it is hard.  There are thousands of us out there who are doing the exact same thing!