Fellow Christian, have you ever had someone criticize your way of life?
Make fun of your beliefs?
Insinuate that you are stupid?
Boring?
That you don't ever have any fun?
I know I have heard these things, felt like others think that I am stupid, and I will bet you have too.
This is not new, it has been going on for over 2,000 years. The Bible mentions this about several believers, even Jesus had to tolerate this kind of behavior.
The one story about a righteous believer that sticks out in my mind is Noah and his family.
"This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God."
Genesis 6:9
Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters came upon the earth."
Genesis 7: 6
Can you imagine what it was like for Noah and his family before the rain came?
Noah's wife:
"I'm not getting any younger." she grumbles to herself as she close the door on yet another unkind neighbor who sat at her kitchen table, as they have done day after day, criticizing her whole way of life, criticizing her ancient husband for following God's excellent but nevertheless bizarre command to build a boat the size of several buildings in the middle of the desert with no water anywhere nearby.
Noah's Sons:
Shem, Ham, and Japheth,- "guys, I like your father but don't you think he has gone off the deep end?" "He makes you work every day in the hot sun until your muscles are aching building a boat in the middle of the desert." Their friends say to them.
"A boat! What is he going to do with it?
What's up with that? Doesn't he love you?"
Noah's Wife when Noah comes in:
Every evening he comes in-her husband, that is-hands all calloused and sweaty, ego cracked, and on the edge of breaking to ask her the same three questions.
"Do you think I'm crazy?" " Do you think it will ever rain?" " Do I look stupid out there building that boat?"
And of course she has to sit there day after day saying, "of course you don't look stupid dear. Everything is going to be alright. " while secretly biting her nails and imploring God to bring the rain.
Then the zoo arrives, the added work in no way diminishes the sense of relief and joy for neither of them. God be praised!!!!
I had a little fun with this scenario to make a point. For non-believers maybe we do look a little crazy. They don't understand why we do the things we do. To them, we speak a different language at times and look like we are shut in, not able to do things others do.
Noah was shut in away from all the world by the hand of divine love. The door of God’s electing purpose separates us from the world, which lies in the wicked one. We are not of the world even as our Lord Jesus was not of the world. Into the sin, the folly, the pursuits of the crowd we cannot enter; we cannot play in the streets of Vanity Fair with the children of darkness, for our heavenly Father has shut us in.
C.H. Spurgeon
Yes, we are shut in, protected , and loved, while the outside the raging waters rise. The world continues to spiral downward while we sit peacefully in the ark of our saviors love.
Remember in the movie Legend. The character that Will Smith plays is killing zombies, the walking dead. But then he finds out that there is a pill that they can take that makes them human again. We also were once the walking dead- now we are alive- Jesus is our pill.
We have the antidote, we have the answer.
We must be different because the world rebels against God. They don't want God, they feel they don't need God, and they want to replace God. We know better.
We want God in our lives, we need God, we are nothing without Him, and nothing can replace God.
As believers, our thinking should be different from that of the world—we need to consider what is above the sun. We must consider God when it comes to education, marriage, success, and purpose. The world’s thought process is vanity—just a grasping of the air—but the believer’s thought process must be saturated with God.
Essentially, Christians should be different because they are in the school of Christ. At some point, they became disciples of Christ, and now they daily sit at his feet—listening to his voice and conforming to his image.
Noah was so shut in that he could not even desire to come out, and those who are in Christ Jesus are in Him forever. They are there forever because eternal faithfulness has shut them in, and infernal malice cannot drag them out. God closes, and no man opens; and when in the last days as Master of the house He shall rise and close the door, it will be futile for mere professors to knock and cry, “Lord, Lord open for us,” for that same door which closes in the wise virgins will shut out the foolish forever. Lord, close me in by Your grace.
C. H. Spurgeon
Be different, be what God wants you to be. People will notice, and wonder what you have.
Maybe they will want it too. And maybe, the God of the Universe will use you, yes you, to help change the world.