Christians Live Counter to the Culture of the World

When carnal attitudes interfere with the handling of Kingdom matters, there is always loss for the Kingdom of God. Either conflicts arise, or abuses result, or the devil gains an advantage, and then he takes advantage of those opportunities to sow dissension and scandal in the world and to present a negative image of the children of God and the Kingdom of God.

And this is what we see in this case in Matthew 20:20. That is why it is so important to insist on this point: when we enter Christian service, and even the ways of the Lord, the first thing we have to understand is that the things of the Kingdom of God are not handled in the same way things are handled in the world. The Kingdom of God is a counterintuitive culture; it is a very different culture, one that is actually in conflict with the culture of the world.

When we enter the Kingdom of God, we have to assume that many things within us will have to die. The way we process the matters of life, the way we process conflicts, for example, our own desires and plans, the decisions we make, human relationships—there is a very different way of processing these things in the Kingdom from the way they are handled in the world.

And this is what the Lord Jesus Christ seeks to make use of when these men come into conflict and the Lord calls them aside and tells them: No, this is the way things are done in My Kingdom, very differently from the way things are done in the world. That is why, if we truly want to be used by God, we must continually ask the Lord to deal with us.

We must ask Him to make us aware that we have truly entered a completely different realm, to keep us alert to our own carnal impulses, to those destructive patterns we bring with us which, when we incorporate them into the Christian life, prove terribly destructive and which we must change. We must continually seek illumination and direction from the Holy Spirit so that those carnal habits may be subjected to the Holy Spirit’s dealings and so that, as time passes, we may adopt a posture, a mindset, a way of doing things that is more in keeping with Jesus Christ and His benevolent and generous personality.

I think of one of the passages found in the Book of Romans, where it says: “Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed through the renewal of your understanding.” In other words, what the apostle Paul is saying there is that we cannot adapt ourselves to the patterns of the world; we cannot live according to the way the world does things. That is why he says, do not be conformed to this age.

When he says age, he is not necessarily saying a century in terms of chronological time, but rather this epoch, this era, this culture, this way of doing things within this present system of administering the world, which is history. We Christians live in opposition to the culture of the world, and we have supposedly adopted a very different posture, one more in keeping with the principles of the Kingdom of God and with the attitude Christ exemplified in His walk here on Earth, and which the Bible is continually trying to teach us.

Then the apostle Paul continues there in Romans, saying: “Rather, be transformed through the renewal of your understanding.” There are two key words here: be transformed, be renewed. Transformation is the final result, and renewal is the daily process that leads to transformation. Every day we have to ask the Lord to renew a little more of our mind, our character, our personality. Every day we have to ask the Holy Spirit to deal with a different facet of our being and gradually polish us, deal with us, break us, and cut away things from our flesh that are not beneficial to the building up of the Kingdom of God.

We are a project continually being dealt with by the Lord, and unless we are aware of that need for the Holy Spirit to be dealing with us, renewing us, changing us, removing improper attitudes, character traits that are not pleasing to the Lord, appetites that are not appropriate for Christian leadership, ambitions, and other unsuitable things, then we will be careless and will continue carrying out the same carnal attitudes that, time and again, will lead us to failure and to the undermining and destruction of our ministries. And instead of being used by God, we will be used by the devil to wreak havoc within the Kingdom of God.

We have to ask the Lord: Lord, renew me every day; change the different things within me. I know that I am not everything I ought to be. I know that the image of Jesus Christ has not yet been fully formed in me, and I need You to renew me continually, because otherwise what I will do is incorporate the same patterns, the same attitudes I had in the world, try to graft them into the Kingdom of God, and harm my ministry and God’s calling upon my life.

So we have to ask the Lord: renew me every day; change my attitudes; make me more like Christ. Conform my thoughts and my conduct to the principles of the Kingdom of God so that I may then preach like Christ, act like Christ, solve problems like Christ, and be a true servant of the Lord who reflects the character of Jesus. That is the only thing that can prevent situations from continually arising around us that undo what we are trying to do with such good intentions.

May the Lord bless you, and I hope this will be a blessing to your lives. This is Pastor Roberto Miranda saying goodbye. Many blessings.