The World and Following Christ

It seems that the scariest part of accepting Christ is that the world puts expectations on us. It is not what the Lord asks us to do, but what the world perceives us as being.

You follow Jesus? You must never do anything ‘bad’. You are led by the Holy Spirit? You must think you are better than everyone. You love God? You must hate a certain group of people.

We think that if we announce to the word our surrender to God, the world will put certain expectations on us, and we don’t feel prepared to handle that.

I have a friend that is a new believer, they are learning about God and running after Him (it is quite exciting to see). They have shared with their loved ones that they have chosen to follow Christ and have posted God’s word on their social media. Their family has even encouraged them to pursue God’s word.

After a month or so, they had some interactions with their loved ones. After discussions, their loved ones responded with “That’s not very Christian of you!”

My first reaction to hearing that is “What?! How dare they! They don’t even know Jesus!” I had the overwhelming temptation to react in a way that shunned my friend’s loved ones and protected my friend.

But I checked in with my spirit and realized that is not how Jesus would react. This is an attack on my friend’s spiritual life. The enemy knows that my friend’s family is VERY important to them.

If I reacted poorly, it would pull my friend away from God, or their family.

This is what I told them:

“I don’t know what the situations were, but it is hard for people around us to see us grow and change when they are not. They will say things they don’t mean. It’s not them it is the enemy. Take comfort that we all will never be “Christian enough”, and that isn’t the goal. The goal is to have a relationship with our God, who knows we are imperfect and knows we will make mistakes. Also, if what you voiced is in line with the bible…it is the truth whether we like it or not. If you are hurting from this, don’t allow it to create division. Pray that you can forgive them and ask God how to proceed.”

First, we need to separate the enemy’s attack from the person. People are not the enemy. Luckily my friend recognized this is a spiritual attack. But it reminded me of these “worldly expectations”.

Ideally, we don’t want anyone to look at what we are doing…ever. No hovering. No helicopters. No over-the-shouldering. We don’t want it to be pointed out that we make mistakes.

It feels like when we tell people we are Christian, or Followers of Christ we are telling the world “LOOK AT ME! I’M PERFECT! I AM ALLOWED TO JUDGE YOU.”

But that isn’t the case at all. The narrative has been twisted and corrupted.

What we are really saying is “I’m not perfect at all. I don’t have all the answers. I need love and hope that only Jesus can give me.”

God is interested in what He can do in you. Not what you can do for the world (a lot of us know the work He does in us, transfers to the world but you know what I mean).

God wants to build you up and He gave you the perfect role model to look to. Literally perfect. Jesus Christ. Be honest about your journey and imperfections. Let God do a work in you.

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