Similar?

Picture the scene. There is a disturbance and your life is threatened, so you call the police to step in and stop the gang fight right outside your house. A crowd is gathering to watch and some are stepping in to take a side, and then the police arrive. Only now you realise the police are also dressed like the brawling gangs, so when they try to stop the fighting no one knows who is who, and the criminals escape while the police sort out who is on their side. It’s so much easier when you can tell the lawbreakers from the lawmakers, right? That’s a very good reason for our emergency services wearing a uniform. You know who they are.

Why then do Christians try their best to fit in with the rest of the world and be like them? We try to be one of them, because we don’t want to scare them off we argue. A similar discussion follows with dress code, music, places we go, movies we watch, magazines we read, what we drink, and the list goes on. In the meantime, we see our declining church attendance, and continue to think being the same is the answer, so when one similarity fails, we try to add another, and we find that doesn’t work either.

If you want a different answer, you have to try a different approach. Doing the same thing time and again, gives the same result time and again. The Christian life makes us different on the inside, and so we should be different on the outside too. What will the enquiring, unsaved person think when they look at us, and see a mirror image of themselves? If we are going into the world to fight against the evils of sin, shouldn’t we be seen as different?

We are called to be a sanctified (set apart) people, with an obvious love for the Lord and each other. That means seekers of truth should be able to know where to turn, and who to turn to because they should see Jesus in us. Churches do not need to copy the clubs and pubs in the world with lights, music, and feel good speakers who do it better than us anyway. We should be preaching the gospel of repentance and salvation, not cosying up to people and groups who already may know where the truth lies, but all they can see in us is a shallow form of Christianity. May we never be like the church group mentioned in Matthew 23:27 when Jesus says “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of …….all uncleanness.