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Each week a new verse-by-verse Bible study podcast given in expository style. Join us and see the Bible come alive as we study the truths that God‘s Word has for us.
Episodes
Sunday Jul 17, 2016
Sunday Jul 17, 2016
The institution of marriage, as it was created by God, is a wonderful thing. It is defined in the Bible as one man and one woman choosing to love God first and then each other next. They work together to accomplish the will of God in their lives. They are true yokemates working together to please God. Marriage is something which God has given to the entire human family, not just to Christians or to the nation Israel. In the Book of Genesis, we are told that God made man and at that time man was alone. I think the Lord let Adam be alone for a long time to let him know he was missing something. Then Scripture says that God took man and from man He made woman. Using the Hebrew words, Genesis 2:23 reads, She shall be called Isha, because she was taken out of Ish. She is called … an help meet for him (Gen. 2:18); that is, a help that was fit for him. In other words, she was to be the other half of him. He was only half a man, and she was to be the other part of him.
In God’s blueprint for marriage, He has assigned roles for both the wife and the husband. A godly wife was a woman who has a healthy fear and respect of God. A woman who is obedient to God’s will for her life. A woman who seeks to fit into the needs of her husband as they work together to accomplish the tasks that God has assigned to them. She is also a woman who is submissive to her husband. Now, when Peter says to the wives, Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands, it absolutely does not mean that the wife is to be a slave to her husband. The Bible does not teach that in any form or way. What is does teach is that a woman is to make a voluntary choice to be submissive to her husband because of her love for God. The Christian wife, in obedience to her Lord, subjects herself to her husband’s leadership, authority, and control. She does this because she fears God, because she loves God, and her duty, just like the husband’s, is to be obedient to God’s will for her life.
Now, this is important to understand, none of this means that men are superior to women or that women are inferior to men. They have simply agreed to work together with the husband leading. In the marriage relationship, it simply means that God insists on order in the home. To establish that order, He assigns the respective roles to the husband and the wife. There cannot be two captains on a ship; neither can there be two people at the helm in the home.
Godly husbands are to be considerate of their wives. Men are not to ride roughshod over their wives, bossing and bullying them, ordering them around, letting them do hard labor which is beyond their strength, or making unreasonable demands upon them. Peter says that godly husbands and wives are heirs together of the grace of life. This means you both are co-heirs of God’s grace. You both are saved from your sin. You both are joint heirs with Christ. You both are adopted children of God. You both have been granted eternal life by God’s grace. The husband and the wife are partners. They must work together. They have something more than marriage vows to bond them together. They have Christ. They are heirs together of God's gracious gift of everlasting life. They are true yokemates. They should work together to establish a Christian home, to bring up children in the ways of the Lord, to provide a measure of stability to a community, and to be the moral and spiritual backbone of the nation.
A godly husband is to dwell with them according to knowledge. For a husband to deal with his wife in the way that God wants him to do, the husband must know and understand several things. First, he must know God’s desire for the marriage relationship. This means he knows what marriage is and what it is to be in the eyes of God. Next, he must know his wife. This means he knows her nature and emotional makeup, what she needs and wants emotionally and spiritually, her strengths and her weaknesses. He must also know the word of God. You cannot be the spiritual leader of your home if you do not know what God says in His Word. The husband has the responsibility to guide the family in the will of God. In order to do this, the husband must know the Word of God. It is amazing how easy it is for a wife to submit herself to a husband that is who and what God says he is supposed to be.
With that in mind, you can see that the marriage relationship is not to be one of a man insisting on treating his wife like a little child who has to jump every time he says so. She is there to help him. She is there to be a part of him. She is there to love him. And he is there to love her, guide her in the ways of God, and protect her. That is God’s desire for the relationship of a man and woman in marriage. This is how a husband is to treat his wife, and this is how a wife is to treat her husband. They both do this because they love God first, and then each other next.
Listen to this podcast to learn what God defines as a godly marriage.
Sunday Jul 03, 2016
Sunday Jul 03, 2016
If I were to ask you to describe something in your life that was absolutely perfect, what would you say?
I would say a big round plate, with three buttermilk biscuits, made from scratch, piping hot from the oven, split open with steam coming off of them, and then multiple ladles of sausage gravy filled with pounds and pounds of spicy sausage poured all over those biscuits. And then me with permission to eat the whole plate, bite by bite, until it was all gone. Now that is the absolutely perfect meal.
How about the love of my wife for me, now that is absolutely perfect. Why she loves, I don’t know, but she does, and in my eyes it is perfect.
Unfortunately, as good as those things are, we really have no concept of the absolute perfection of the living, true, almighty, God. That sausage gravy may be too thick or runny, and as perfect as my wife is, she still gets mad at me from time to time. Yet, God’s perfection is total and complete.
God’s Son, Jesus Christ, is perfect. He came to this earth and He remained absolutely perfect. He died on the cross for our sins, even though he was totally pure of sin in any form. He had no reason to do this other than His love for us. No other sacrifice could do what His did. No other sacrifice could be good enough to meet the demands of God’s holiness. This is why no amount of good behavior can grant you eternal life in heaven. We simply cannot be good enough, there is nothing on this earth that is truly perfect. But Jesus Christ was and is, and He chose to suffer for us. At Calvary, all of the sins of the world, past, present, and future were placed upon this perfect sacrifice. The Lord Jesus his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree. He died so that we might live.
Last week we described the Jesus Christ who willingly chose to step down from His throne in heaven and come to earth as God incarnate in man in order to suffer for us because sin raised its head in the universe and was transplanted to Earth. Adam fell. Sin entered, and death by sin. Now the Creator must become the Christ. Prophet after prophet arose to foretell the coming of a Kinsman-Redeemer, a Savior which is Christ the Lord.
So God's Son became the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of David. He was to be the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He was the Child born and the Son given. He was called the Wonderful Counselor, the Father of eternity, the Mighty God, the Prince of peace.
He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, the Lord's Anointed, Prophet, Priest, and King. Page after page of the Old Testament told the story. Book after book was written, all about Him. Detail added to detail increased the wonder of it all. He stood apart from all others, robed in majesty, the altogether lovely One, and the chiefest among ten thousand, the One who suffered for us. He was the perfect sacrifice.
Sunday Jun 19, 2016
Sunday Jun 19, 2016
How many people do you know that would suffer gruesome torture and death for you? I would suspect not many, if there was anyone at all. Yet, Christ suffered for us, and the truth is that we don’t even really understand the magnitude of the suffering Christ endured for each of us and for mankind in general.
When we think of Christ, it is generally after He came to live among us. We think of the baby Jesus, the man Jesus, the miracle worker Jesus, the teacher Jesus, and the Jesus that died on the cross, who was buried and rose again. We think of Jesus as we see Him portrayed in movies and TV, as a Man. As believers, we also think of Him in His risen and resurrected glory. This is the Jesus we normally think of. But that is a very limited view of our Lord. Jesus Christ was much more than that.
I love the description that John Phillips gives of who the Lord Jesus really is. I am paraphrasing here, but he says that the Bible gives us a picture of who the Lord Jesus was way back before time ever began, dwelling in a light unapproachable and living in perfect harmony with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit in unimaginable glory. He was uncreated, self-existing, coeternal, coequal, and coexistent with the Father and the Spirit. He was, and is, God the Son, the second person of the triune Godhead. His wisdom was infinite, His love fathomless, and His power without measure or end. His nature and attributes were those of the living God. He basked in the sunshine of the Father's love in endless delight. Eternal ages rolled by without end. All was love, joy, and peace, beyond all imagination or thought. And then, in the council chambers of eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit agreed that They would act in creation. The Son was the active agent.
Col 1:16
16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
KJV
All things were created by Him. John tells us the same thing.
John 1:1-3
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
KJV
The Son put forth His wisdom and His power, and hosts of angels appeared, rank upon rank. Galaxies of stars sprang into being and filled space with billions of centers of light. Planet Earth, a bright blue sphere in the Milky Way, was chosen to be the home of man. Life, in a countless variety of forms, appeared at His command. Man was created and became another exhibit of the Son’s wisdom and power.
This is the One who willingly chose to step down from His throne in heaven and come to earth as God incarnate in man in order to suffer for us because sin raised its head in the universe and was transplanted to Earth. Adam fell. Sin entered, and death by sin. Now the Creator must become the Christ. Prophet after prophet arose to foretell the coming of a Kinsman-Redeemer, a Savior which is Christ the Lord.
So God's Son became the Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, the Seed of David. He was to be the Lion of the tribe of Judah. He was the Child born and the Son given. He was called the Wonderful Counselor, the Father of eternity, the Mighty God, the Prince of peace.
He was born of a virgin in Bethlehem, the Lord's Anointed, Prophet, Priest, and King. Page after page of the Old Testament told the story. Book after book was written, all about Him. Detail added to detail increased the wonder of it all. He stood apart from all others, robed in majesty, the altogether lovely One, and the chiefest among ten thousand, the One who suffered for us.
Peter saw it happen. He was an eyewitness of much of it. The suffering began when Jesus was but eight days old. He was circumcised. It was His first personal experience of pain. He grew up. He began His ministry. He suffered at the hands of the people He had come to save. He knew loneliness, rejection, and malicious hatred. His family disbelieved His claims. His disciples let Him down. Peter himself denied Him with oaths and curses, and Judas sold Him for a pocketful of change.
He wept His heart out in Gethsemane. He was falsely accused, beaten, and abused by His own people, then He was mocked, scourged, and crucified by the soldiers of Rome. He endured the torments of death on a cross. Finally, He was made sin for us and abandoned by God.
Peter says, Leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. As believers we are the apprentice and Christ is the Master Carpenter. He is our example of how to live the life of a victorious Christian. He is our example of how we are to react to suffering, living in a moment-by-moment cooperation with the indwelling Spirit of God.
Sunday Jun 12, 2016
Sunday Jun 12, 2016
But my boss is moody, unfair, unjust, corrupt, and just plain awful to me. You can’t be serious; do I really have to honor my boss?
In our lesson today, Peter will talk about how we treat those around us. The good people and the bad people. The popular people and the social misfits. Our brothers and sisters in Christ and those who have rejected Christ, and even those who we work for. God wants us to win others to Christ, that is our mission. We won’t do that if we treat people poorly, or if we are in an adversarial relationship with them. People respond to those who treat them with respect. You don’t have to like them, or what they stand for, or even what they have done to you or others, but you can still treat them with respect and honor.
I have a son who works as a prison guard in a maximum security prison. This is a place that houses the worst of the worst in our state penitentiary system. Some guards use their position of authority to abuse the prisoners and treat them with despite. The prisoners react to this treatment with violence and it endangers all of the guards and other prisoners. My son has learned that if you treat them with respect, always watchful for deception, that the prisoners will generally respond with obedience and a level of respect in return. This is not to say that the prisoners would not harm you in a blink of an eye, but people, even really bad people, respond to being treated with respect.
God wants His ambassadors to be seen as law abiding, caring people, who treat others with respect, even in the face of persecution.
Peter says that we are to do this, For so is the will of God. This is not optional. To do otherwise is to be out of God's will. Our first priority is unto God. This applies to all of our relationships.
Sounds a lot like what my father told me, and what I told my own kids. There are just times that a parent must say to their child, I want you to do this, because I said so. I don’t have to explain myself, just do it because I want you to.
Now, fortunately, God is in the process of giving us a further explanation for His command to obey, but He starts out with, you are to do this because it is my will for you. Pretty simple. So simple, even I can understand it. Be obedient to the laws of man, or be out of God’s will. My dad would expect my response to such a statement from him to be, yes, sir. God expects the same thing.
Sunday Jun 05, 2016
Sunday Jun 05, 2016
So, last week we continued the theme of submitting to the ordinances of man in order that we might bring glory to God. We know that we are going to be persecuted unjustly. The secular world hates Christianity, and they will do everything they can to destroy us. They will tell horrible lies about us. To know this is true, you have only to look at the headlines of our own country. The democratic party, and its progressive agenda, is focused totally on removing God, those who worship Him, and His morals about what is right and wrong from the public square, and for the most part, they have succeeded by telling lies about us.
So why would God command us to obey the laws that these corrupt governments create?
Our submission is limited only by our adherence to God’s laws in priority over man’s law. But, we are to obey man’s law right up to the point that it violates God’s law, and that is difficult to understand why. It is, of course, contrary to our natural desire for justice and fairness. And believe me, nothing is more distasteful that being forced to obey the laws of the moral degenerates who are pushing their progressive agenda. But God says I must. I can and should fight for what is good and moral by God’s definitions, but I must do it within the law.
The key to understanding this seeming paradox is that we must remember that we are the ambassadors of the almighty God, and all of our words, our actions, and our fights, must bring glory to His name, or we have failed Him. Our mission is to change the spiritual hearts of people by introducing them to our Lord Jesus Christ, and let God take care of the rest. Revival can only occur when the heart is changed by God.
In our lesson today, Peter begins to give us an explanation for our submission.
Sunday May 29, 2016
Sunday May 29, 2016
If I were to ask you to give me a list of so-called Christians or Christian groups that give others a bad impression of Christians, and Christianity as a whole, who would you list? My list would include churches that protest military funerals, and violent anti-abortion groups and people. Make no mistake about it, God does not support this type of activity, and it does not bring glory to His name. When one of these groups protest the burial of war veteran, nobody is thinking positive things about the people of God. When an anti-abortionist walks in and shoots people, nobody is thinking positive things about the people or groups that this person represents or the God they claim to worship.
If I were to ask you about the top lies the secular world says about Christians, what would you say? My list would include “They are all a bunch of hypocrites” or “They hate _____people,” fill in the blank with whatever sin you want, be it gay people, drunk people, abortion doctors, or adulterers. While these are certainly lies of the greatest magnitude about true Christians, people who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior, they are unfortunately true of a large group of people who claim to be Christians. Once again, make no mistake about it, God does not condone hypocrisy, or hatred of any person, on the part of His true followers. Some of the most vehement words that Jesus spoke while He was on this earth were directed at the hypocritical Pharisees and Sadducees. The Bible does not teach it, nor does God command His followers to behave in this way. In fact, He commands just the opposite.
Mark 12:29-31
29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:
30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
KJV
You cannot love your neighbor as yourself, and hate them at the same time. God didn’t say love only the good people, He said to love thy neighbor. We are to recognize and proclaim sin for what it is, rebellion against God. We are to recognize those who commit sin as rebels against God. We are to preach and teach people to obey the commandments of God. To behave in a way that is in accordance with God’s definition of good and moral, and to abstain from those things that God calls evil and amoral.
We are to do this with a spirit of love and because we know the eternal consequences of rejecting Jesus Christ and rebelling against God are real and permanent. Hell is real and it is forever. God’s judgment is real, and because we love our neighbors as ourselves, we do not want this for anyone. Our mission is to preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ so that He can change the heart of that person, and provide them with eternal life.
The world is going to make up enough lies about us as it is. We are going to be persecuted unjustly. The only defense we have is that our behavior does not match the lies. If someone wants to look for the truth in your life, they should find a law abiding citizen who respects the law of man.
Yet, when we, as Christians, violate man’s laws and become labeled as criminals, when we lie, or steal, or fail to pay our taxes, drive a vehicle while we are drunk, when we commit violent acts, or when we violate God’s commandments, we bring dishonor to the God that we serve. We bring dishonor to the name of those who serve God and we taint the gospel message that we preach. Our actions have to match our words. This is what our lesson is about today, behaving in such a way that when the world tells lies about us, our behavior can set the record straight and bring glory to the God we serve.
Sunday May 22, 2016
Sunday May 22, 2016
Last week we began talking about how the believer is to live a separated life by his behavior. In other words, people should see a difference in us by our behavior. They are to see in us a type of behavior that brings glory to God.
We are a chosen people, we have a special position before God, we are separated by birth because we are the adopted children of God, we are no longer the slaves of Satan, we are separated by our new birth.
We are a people separated by our belief, our faith is in Christ, our beliefs are unlike any other man-made religion, we believe in our salvation by God’s grace and the precious blood of a risen Savior, not man’s works and efforts. We are separated by our belief.
We are also a people who should live lives that show a new attitude toward the world around us. We are to be strangers and pilgrims in this world that is no longer our home. The world is defined as the society around us, with God left out. God is deliberately not welcome in the minds and hearts of most people in our society. Neither are His adopted children, Christians.
We are strangers in this world. We are away from our home. We are in this world, but we are not of this world.
We are also pilgrims in this world because we are on our path back home. Our eye is on the goal of completing our mission that God has given us. The mission of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with a dark world.
Peter is telling us that our goodness, a goodness that is to be something beautiful to behold, is how we are to behave. This goodness is to include our obedience of the laws of man. Christians will be, and have been, accused of horrendous crimes, of hatred, and of violence. These are lies on a grand scale, and God wants our behavior to prove that these things are false. Our behavior is to be such that when the world sees a Christian, they are to say that their behavior brings glory to the God that they serve. In other words, we are God's people in a world of lost people. Our behavior is to reflect the goodness of God who has sent us here as His personal ambassadors. This goodness, that is witnessed by others, is to be a result of our separation.
This is the basis for everything Peter teaches in this passage. We are a chosen people who have been saved, reborn, and given a mission from God. That mission is to serve God. It is to be a witness for Him, to lead others to Christ, and to bring glory to God. That is our mission. Everything else takes a back seat.
God has commanded us to live separated lives. He has given us His definition of the words good, moral, evil, and amoral. We do not get to change those definitions as the world has done. Our lives are to meet His standards so that we can represent Him and bring glory to His name. The world is to know God by what they see in us.
Sunday May 15, 2016
Sunday May 15, 2016
If I were to describe someone as a good person, a moral person, what does that mean to you? If I were to describe someone as an evil person, an amoral person, what does that mean to you? Where do the definitions of the words good, moral, evil, and amoral come from? Are these words relative? Are some people better than others, or more evil than others?
Do those words, good, moral, evil, and amoral, have the same meaning today as they did 10 years ago, 20 years ago, even 40 years ago? I don’t think so, so why has the world changed the definition of what good and moral behavior means? Why does the world want a different definition of these words?
As with all words, the meaning depends on the dictionary that you use for it. For example, if I say the word resurrection as it relates to Christ, I mean the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I get my definition from the Word of God, the Bible is my dictionary. Many Christian religions, and some non-Christian religions, believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but they have a different definition for the word resurrection. They may believe in a spiritual only resurrection, or maybe a symbolic resurrection, but not a physical resurrection. They say the same words, but they use a different dictionary to define the word, so we have to be careful to know which dictionary we are using when we say the words good, moral, evil, and amoral.
The answer to the question of why the world has changed the definition of these words is because God’s definition of these words, as He defines them in the Bible, are too restrictive. They don’t fit in with the new morality. So over time, man has chosen a different dictionary to define these words, they have moved away from God’s definitions in the Bible, to a definition of their own creation. The further man moves from the definitions of the Bible, the more evil behavior is called good, and good behavior is called bad. God warns us of this in His Word.
Isa 5:20
20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
KJV
We live in a society today where homosexuality and lesbianism are called good. Men can call themselves a woman, have some surgery, and they are called brave, heroes, and good. It was not long ago that the country had a different name for these types of behavior, but now we are told we must accept evil and amoral behavior as good and moral. In fact, we must go further than just accepting them, we must agree with the world and call them good and moral, or face persecution.
We live in a society today where God’s definitions of good, moral, evil, amoral, and those who preach, teach, and try to live by these definitions are the ones called evil and hateful. Jesus tells how we should react to these descriptions.
Luke 6:22
22 Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
KJV
So, let me ask you, are you feeling blessed these days?
Our lesson today is about why God wants His followers to live their lives by His definition of the words good, moral, evil, and amoral. We are to be different from the world, not weird different, but a good difference. A difference that people will notice and be drawn to. We will never be perfect by God’s standards, but we are to live our lives more like Christ lived His life every day. God has a purpose in this desire for us. We are to be a separated people, not isolated, but separated from the world’s definitions. We are God’s special people, a peculiar people, a chosen people. We are His ambassadors and our lives should show it.
Sunday Apr 24, 2016
Sunday Apr 24, 2016
When we think of building a home, we spend a lot of time thinking about how many rooms we want to have, how big they should be, should we use carpets on the floor or some kind of tile or wood; what kind of countertops, marble, Formica, tile, or even solid wood; what color the outside of the house should be, do you want a deck or a fence in the backyard. Everything we spend the most time on is generally on the appearance of the home, and the functionality of the rooms, and that is understandable because that is what we see and use the most.
I would hazard a guess that, other than deciding on whether or not to have a basement, most of us will not even spend 5 minutes making sure the house has a solid foundation to be built on. As Jesus said in His parable of the two builders, there are wise builders and there are foolish builders.
Matt 7:24-27
24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:
25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.
26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
KJV
The foundation of our home may not be the thing we think about the most, but the truth is, if the foundation of your home is not solid, the winds and storms of Kansas will blow all of that nice exterior and interior beauty away in just a brief moment. In fact, after a tornado, often the only thing left is the foundation of the home.
The spiritual house of our church and our own spiritual life, depend on having a solid foundation. You can have the best music program, the most entertaining sermons, even the best youth programs, but if your spiritual house is not built on a faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of the living God, then, you will have nothing but disappointment when the storms of tragedy come blowing into your life.
1 Cor 3:11
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
KJV
This is what our lesson is about today. Jesus Christ as the Living Stone that is to be the foundation that our spiritual house is built upon.
Sunday Apr 17, 2016
Sunday Apr 17, 2016
HOW TO LIVE A HOLY LIFE
When I was a kid growing up, my father would tell me that I needed to choose the people I hung around with very carefully because if you are part of a group, then you will be judged by the behavior of that group. Whether, or not, you actually did whatever the group did, that was how people would think of you. In other words, if you hang out with a group that is always getting into trouble, then people will think of you as a trouble maker. If you hang out the smart people, then you will be judged to be like them whether you really are smart, or not. I am not saying that is fair, it is just the way it is. Life is rarely fair.
I learned this lesson well, and I generally chose to do things the various groups of kids were not doing. As the saying goes, I was country when country wasn’t cool. I turned in my platform shoes and walked all around my college campus wearing cowboy boots. Now, I have to admit, it was at Kansas State University, so it wasn’t all that unusual. I gave up listening to Three Dog Night, Chicago, and Sly and Family Stone as a teenager and started listening to Willie and Waylon, Hank Jr, and Merle Haggard back in the rebel days of country music.
After a while, I switched to traditional country music which included George Strait and the music from the 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s. People like Hank Sr., Patsy Cline, Don Williams, Danny Davis and Nashville brass, and so forth. I even started listening to big band and 40’s club music. Nobody was listening to these guys at that time. It actually became a point in my life to be seen as different from all of the crowd. But being different meant that I was not a part of any particular group. Certainly not, the in-crowd. This was a conscious, and deliberate, decision on my part. I did not want to be associated with the in-crowd, and so I wasn’t.
This actually fit right in with being a Christian during my school years. Living the life of a Christian means you will never be popular, and you will not be a part of the cool kids. In fact, the Bible tells us that we will be hated.
Mark 13:13
13 And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.
KJV
Even knowing that this true, there is to be a conscious, deliberate, decision on the part of a believer, to live a life that is separated from the secular world. Not isolated from the world, for we live in the world, but we are not to be of the world. When people describe you, they should say that there is something different about you, not goofy different, but a good difference. There ought to be something attractive about the way you conduct yourself. There should be a lack of anxiety about all of the things that worry the rest of the world. There should be a humility in your words and your actions. There should be kindness in your actions to others. In fact, people should see Christ shining out of you.
Everything you think about when you consider how Christ lived His life on this earth, ought to be something that you are moving toward, or growing toward as a Christian. This is what living a holy life means. It is living a separated life. One set aside for Christ, dedicated to the work of Christ, and accomplishing the purposes of God in this world.
This is what our lesson is about today, how to live a holy, or a separated life.