How Do I Respond to the World Around Me Without Compromising Who I Am?

I’ve been through much fire in my life. Fire due to my own sin and fire due to my faith. Based on my own life experience with sin and viewing my experience and failure through the filter of God’s Word, I have come to believe firmly that God’s Word is true and that anything is possible with Him. Yet, when faced with the stance of that faith and the need to express that faith in love, how do I walk in peace while swimming against the stream of modern culture?

I have made things simple for myself. When faced with that very dilemma, I have come to the place of boiling things down to the lowest common denominator:

And he [Jesus] answered, “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

Luke 10:27 NASB

In any given situation, how do I love God in this moment? How do I love my neighbor in this moment? How do I love myself in this moment?

LOVE GOD

I cannot deny God in any situation…regardless of what anyone else says. How can my attitudes and actions and words bring honor to Him? I am called to ‘say so’…to declare what God has done for me. My story is my story! I own it and thank God for it. My life is a declaration that says, “Look what I went through, but look what God did!”

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR

Who is your neighbor? Whomever I happen to be with! People ask me about my ministry - who I focus on. The answer is easy. I am minister to whomever I happen to be with…in spite of our differences. In spite of what they believe or don’t believe. We are not commanded to agree with anyone…but we are commanded to love! A great question in any given circumstance is ‘how can I lay down my life for this person?’ Laying down of life may mean disagreeing in love. Love stands its ground when it comes to the Truth. Standing alone IS an option…but like the three men in the fiery furnace of old, we are never really alone…are we?

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF - LOVE YOURSELF

My role in the Kingdom is to live out my existence according to Who God says I am. To do anything else is to walk in compromise. Every time I declare what God has done for me I simultaneously declare Who He is and who I am because of Who He is! I love myself by calling myself what my God calls me. My past does not define me. My circumstances do not define me. My temptations do not define me. The current culture does not define me. Only One defines me…and He is my Father.

“Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream.”

W. C. Fields

Swimming upstream is not easy…but it means you are alive! It is the dead fish that goes with the flow! We, as new creations are called to be ministers of reconciliation. We are called to declare the Word of God. We are called to make disciples. We are called to live our lives abundantly in spite of our current culture. We are aliens in a strange land…indeed. Let us allow our lives to declare the power of God to affect change in the culture around us. You can always love God. You can always love your neighbor. You can always declare who and Whose you are.

Dennis Jernigan

Download the mp3 of the song I’VE BEEN THROUGH FIRE here: http://dennisjernigan.com/store/product.php?c=24&p=3537

Listen to/Sing along to I’VE BEEN THROUGH FIRE at: https://youtu.be/gV47pB3TKTw