“Therefore, come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:17-18, NIV)
Almost every truly successful golfer understands that golf demands a focused commitment. No matter how good the teacher, is it is still necessary to spend time alone, working out how we will play the game. We must apply what our teacher tells us and learn to sort their plan for us out from a lot of competing advice. Golf can be a social sport, too, but the aspiring competitor must walk away from the distractions and attend to getting better each day.
This is not unlike our call to follow Jesus. We are called to come out and be separate—to be different than the world around us.
Jesus invites us to be part of his eternal family and will help us be the kind of people that truly are set apart.To please our holy and righteous God, we cannot maintain the status quo of our life before we met Jesus. As our faith grows, we will come to desire to be with people who encourage our faith and don’t bring us back into the darkness of the world we have so recently escaped. It is difficult at best and painful at worst to leave behind the life we once lived. It is a place we are familiar and comfortable with, but if we surround ourselves with those who don’t know Jesus it won’t be long before their influence over us will weaken our faith. Just how do we learn to be in the world but not of the world?
All of us live in a world dominated by the unrighteous, who do not share our faith in Jesus. How do we live and work in that world without compromising our faith? How do we go into the world to share the gospel, as part of our Great Commission, and not fall prey to the siren call of the world of those we seek to reach?
It is essential to guard our heart. We are called out to be separate and to live a life of purity. We are not to be just like everyone else. Who we surround ourselves with has a lot to do with how successful we are in this calling. We can (and will) spend time around all kinds of people, but we should only allow ourselves to invest extra time and emotional energy with those who will help us to follow after Jesus and not tempt us to fall away. Among family or in our workplace, we may have few choices about whom we must spend time with, but we have the ultimate choice about which voices we will listen to.
We serve a holy and jealous God. He won’t indulge a divided heart. He wants us to have a single-minded approach to how we live. His is the one voice we should obey, not for his sake but for our own. If the people we around us prevent us from hearing his voice, we have a choice to make.
Just as the golfer needs to focus on what his teacher says and not listen to every stray piece of advice, we need to learn to hear the one voice that actually wants to help us. Jesus calls us to a life set apart and different from the rest of the world. He invites us to be part of his eternal family and will help us be the kind of people that truly are set apart. Set apart to enjoy his peace and acceptance—something the rest of the world cannot know apart from him.
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Linda Ballard
September 6, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.