By Austen Schueler
As I racked my brain on Friday afternoon in search of a topic for today’s devotion, I found myself stumped. I scoured Twitter and ESPN, each time becoming distracted by the top stories of the afternoon or meaningless Instagram links and YouTube videos. With my eyes continuing to glance at the clock seeing my time slip away before I would have to head off for a night of recruiting, I suddenly stumbled upon a blog posted by I Am Second, titled “What a Christian should look like.”
In it, Jonathon M. Seidl starts out by reminiscing on his Evangelical church youth-group days from the ‘90s sparked by an article he’d read called “13 Thing Every ‘90s Youth-Group-Goer Definitely Owned.” Meant to provide a chuckle, Seidl reflects on how much of his experience during that period of his life revolved primarily around distancing himself from ‘the world’.
“It was about having our own music. Our own movies. Our own sayings. Our own logos. It wasn’t about helping redeem culture, it was about receding from it. It was about working hard to show you were better than all the stuff and bad people around you, thus convincing people they just had to have what you had.” –Seidl, I Am Second
WWJD bracelets, the latest WOW albums, and those ever-inspiring music video montages (think Michael W. Smith’s “Secret Ambition”) were what was embraced while Abercrombie, Coolio, and TRL were instantly taboo. We retreated, secluded, and removed ourselves from the scandalous, violent, and risqué. Ironically though as Seidl points out, our retreat become much like “pointing out the burning house but not caring about those inside.” We were shocked that culture worsened around us? We were dismayed at how others ‘out there’ became more broken while we refused to engage them?
“You poor people. You should come outside. Don’t you see how much better it is out here? I’d come in, but it’s too hot and I don’t want to get burned.” –Seidl, I Am Second
It’s not a condemnation to be different. If anything, for us as Christians, there should be commendation for not being of ‘the world’. However, when our focus shifts from things we shouldn’t do to things we should be doing, then we’re truly living the life we’ve been called to. It should be more about being for versus being against those around us. Our grace and our love demonstrates to others the life-altering power of a relationship with Christ rather than the quarantine we chose.
When we begin to shift our focus from what a Christian should ‘look like’ to what a Christian should ‘be like’ we’ve unpacked what will truly be powerful in the eyes of others. Truth be told, there are certain qualities others should plainly see. Christians admit who they really are. They do the things they don’t want to do. They make mistakes. They’re broken. They have things they’re certain of but still have things they doubt. Some are strong but others are weak. Actually, most of us are weak.
More than anything, what those we interact with need to see is a Christian who’s authentic and authentically human, admitting that they’ve got issues but hold hope they’ll conquer these struggles. We should be living life beyond our own selfish desires and admitting when we fall short. As Seidl puts it, “People whose “don’t dos” are a result of wanting to live a life of more compelling “dos.” Whether we’re addicts, sexual sinners, bad dads, bad husbands, or just in bad shape, we’re not people who have it all put together. We’re instead people that have been put back together.
Seidl finishes his article by quoting writer John Piper, “A Christian is a person living under the constraint of Christ’s love. Christianity is not merely believing a set of ideas about Christ’s love. It is an experience of being constrained by that love.”
Men, let’s go be the Christians we’re meant to be, not just appearing to be in the club.
Set a Fire Down in Your Soul,
Austen
Seidl, J.M. (2015, August 28). What a Christian should look like. Retrieved August 28, 2015, from http://www.iamsecond.com/2015/08/what-a-christian-should-look-like/
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