Sometimes in order to stand out we
have to be willing to stand alone.
Many of us including myself are afraid to
live an “isolated life” if that’s what it will take in order to stand out. Psalm 24:1 tells us that we don’t
belong to ourselves: “the Earth is the Lords and everything in it” So
technically we should be willing to give back what is not ours.
The greatest story of sacrifice is
that of Jesus laying down His life for us. A sacrifice usually costs something;
there may be a price to pay. We stand out to be given out, we stand out to be
given out. The keyword in the definition of this word
sacrifice is the word “offering”, the offering of something (e.g. money,
animals, yourself), usually to a greater cause or a “higher being”, in our
case: to GOD.
Let’s look at the story if Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego in Daniel 3:
The King wanted them to bow to the
idol he had created. What in our lives can be, or are, idols? (E.g. Food, TV,
internet, music, friends, even phones – how many of us can honestly survive
without their phones for 3days?)
The devil has sly and cunning ways of
creating “idols” in our lives that can distract us and cause us to lose that
special touch on our relationship with Christ. This is similar to these three
lads, I mean all they really had to do was bow right, why must they be the only
ones to remain standing, when everyone else was bowing? Plus their lives were
on the line, if they didn’t bow they would be killed.
Besides when they got back home or
went back to church on the following Sunday they could have jumped back on the
“hosanna train” and reasoned with God “ah God man, You understand right? We
didn’t wanna be seen as the crazy Christian dudes that never get involved with
anything”
They refused. They wouldn’t
compromise. Part of standing out is the willingness not to compromise, because
of the fear of what others will say, think or do. (This counts especially when
you make a stand out against something that you’ve been so used to doing).
Sometimes we have to get to a point of saying “I’m going to do/not going to do
‘xyz’” regardless of what “they” may think – who are “they” anyway - let me put
it this way, if your friends cannot respect your decision for or against certain
things you decide on, then they never really were your friend in the first
place, and it’s probably best to let them go! Say “buh-bye”
Standing out for a greater cause
doesn’t automatically mean that life will become smooth sailing, as these
gentlemen soon found out. The king ordered that the fire in the furnace was
heated 7times hotter than its normal temperature.
When the devil notices that you
aren’t falling prey to his trap, or aren’t really intimidated by him; when he
notices that you are still gonna stay on the Lord’s side regardless, then
believe me he will turn up the heat in order to try and make you crack under
pressure!
I’ll give a personal example,
whenever my relationship with God seems to be going well, a situation tends to
arise where I may have to make a decision about something – “do I not do it and
please God, or do I do it and sort it out with God later” – say I decide not to
do it on this occasion, and please God in this matter, it’s like at that
precise moment the devil says “eeehhhh, okaaay, we shall see”, he plays with my
emotions, my peace, my work – sometimes I find no motivation to work, or I
really struggle with understanding something, then I become really down about
it and isolate myself, or just wanna sleep 24/7 to forget about the fact that I
have work I cannot handle, I get further behind and if I don’t manage to catch
up I might stress at the last minute – but God always steps in just at
the right time! And although there is a lot about God’s timing that I
personally do not understand, what I do know is that it is always on-time
(although it actually may not seem that way!)
So back to the story – the guys got
thrown into the fire, expecting to die an instant death, but did not get hurt –
God stepped in at just the right time, their willingness to sacrifice caused
them to stand out, and in the end they won the respect of the king, plus got
promoted! Those people that want to see you trip and fall will not see you go
to ruin, they will respect you and promote you in Jesus name!
John 15 vs 18 & 19 “If
the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The
world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no
longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.
It's time to say "haters move back, I'm on the Lord's side!"
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