He looked at me with surprise
in his eyes. “You came from there?” I offered a tight smile, but even then, I
could feel God’s conviction tugging at my heart.
I was out with my grad school
cohort. We begun the evening at a restaurant, but soon we ended up at a bar. All around
me, people drank in excess and participate in things contrary to God’s word. I
was good right? I didn’t drink. I didn’t swear. I didn’t do the things others were doing. But even
still, I knew I didn’t belong there.
Be not ye therefore partakers
with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord:
walk as children of the light - Ephesians 5:7-8.
Honestly, I sometimes grabble
with the fact that I cannot do everything everyone else in the world does. I’m
a twenty something back on a college campus and the temptation to indulge in the things of the world is real.
During my bar episode, I
texted my friend to let her know where I was at. To my surprise, she
stopped by to see me. She sat with me with a lot on her mind, but I did not want
her to convict me by saying what we were both thinking. She offered to take me
home, but I turned down her offer. After a few minutes, she decided to leave,
so I walked outside with her. Outside, we ran into a new guy from church. He was shocked seeing me walk out of a bar, since he had only seen me
active in church as of yet.
Throughout this night, I
could feel God stirring in my spirit. God in his sufficiency still provided several ways
out of temptation and didn't allow me to be tempted beyond what I could stand (1 Corinthians 10:13). First with my own personal conviction,
next with my friend offering to take me home, and then with running into the
man from church. Listen, we are called to shun the appearance of evil, but I instead
participated in it (1 Thessalonians 5:22).
I get that some of you
reading this are probably like, “What’s the big deal?” The deal is that
regardless of the situation, we are all called to be in the world and not of
it. God gives us specific guidelines of what we should and should not do. He
specifically says, “Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good characters’” 1
Corinthians 15:33. He wants us to use wisdom on who we associate with because it
can lead to us being in situations that are less than God’s best.
Christians, the truth is that
we cannot say yes to everything. We truly are held to a higher standard. Even
though things may be lawful, many things are not edifying to the spirit (1
Corinthians 10:23). So, the next time we
find ourselves in situations that seeming perfectly fine at first glance,
gossiping, smoking, getting drunk, premarital sex, ask yourself is this really going to bring me closer to
God?
Let’s not compromise. As
Christians, we should not look like the world, for the world is trapped in
darkness. Let us be lights of the world, and may everything that we do bring
glory and honor to Jesus (Matthew 5:14-16, Colossians 3:17, & 1 Corinthians
10:31)
Love,
Courtney
