Don’t Be Different AloneSample

A Different Default

God has invited you to join His family, to be part of His holy people. That means you don’t have to be different alone! We are all being built together, like a house, on the foundation of the fathers and mothers of our faith who went before us. But how does that happen? Are there blueprints for this house?

Great questions. The answer? God’s commands help us know how to live differently and be holy.

The Law, found in the Old Testament, is like a blueprint. It was always intended to teach us, God’s holy people, how to relate to God and represent Him to the world.

Jesus summed up the entire Jewish law—all 613 commands—with only two directives, one from the book of Deuteronomy and the other from Leviticus:

… “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40 NIV

How can we be holy? We love God with all that we are—every part of us—and we love others the same way we would want to be loved.

Being undivided in our devotion to God in a world filled with every possible distraction—that’s different. Choosing to really love people sacrificially in a world that is built on selfishly using people—that’s different. That shows the world what God is like. That is how we can become holy.

But if you’re really honest with yourself, you know you can’t do this on your own. You can’t manufacture that kind of faithfulness or muster up that selfless love. When was the last time you made it through a day—a single day—without putting someone else down to make yourself look better, even as a joke? When was the last time you made it more than a couple of hours filled with a deep sense of gratitude and affection for God instead of complaining about something you don’t like and wished was different?

If we’re honest, we know our default isn’t holiness. We need a different default.

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. Galatians 5:13-16 NIV

Paul, who wrote this letter to the Galatians, would say that our default as humans is to operate according to our flesh, which is another way of saying our selfish desires. But, for those of us who have been set free by Jesus, there’s a different default available: walking by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to actually love our neighbor as ourselves and to use our freedom not to serve ourselves but to love God and serve others.

Everything that you need to be holy and live differently comes from Him.

By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:3 NLT

So, what’s left for us to do? We follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. More on that tomorrow!

Challenge: In what area of your life have you been operating in the default of your selfish desires? What do you think it would look like to step into a different default? To walk by the Spirit in that area? Pray and submit that part of your life to Jesus. How? Ask Him to set you free and teach you to walk by the Spirit. Then, go try it. Do what you think Jesus would do if He were you.