“You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” Philippians 2:5 (NLT)
John the Baptist confronted king Herod because of immoral issues, among other things! He wasn’t known as one who sat quietly on the sidelines. In fact, it cost him his head. Elijah confronted the king named Ahab. He was not afraid to address the wicked government of his day. Both John and Elijah spoke up against wicked national leaders. Both were not exactly known for being friendly or nice! Both were greatly used in the kingdom of God!
When Jesus asked His disciples who people were saying is, these two confronters, non-conformers were mentioned. Prophets are not necessarily nice folks. They lived in the world but were not of it. We are not of this world either. We are not to be worried about being culturally relevant! We were never encouraged to buy into being liked. We are called to be countercultural, not to look like the latest trend! Jesus didn’t back down from calling the governing leaders out, saying to Pilate he only had authority because His Father gave it to him (John 19:11) and referring to Herod Jesus said go tell that fox… (Luke 13:32).
Oh yeah, Jesus also hit the religious leaders pretty hard, calling them hypocrites, whitewashed tombs, vipers, snakes and sons of hell (Matthew 23). Not exactly the words of a nice guy!
How are you more like the world than Jesus? What do you need to do to begin to look more like Elijah, John the Baptist… Jesus?
Pray that by God’s grace you would look more and more like Jesus and less like the world, every day. Cry out for Him to expose any place in you that longs to be liked by the world. Pray for your church to look more like Jesus than the world. Cry out that your pastor would prefer to be Biblically focused over culturally relevant. Declare the Church across Athens will look like Jesus!
