Set apart

Lately, and more than a few times in these last months,  I have felt disconnected and detached, even among friends.  I've always been a leader; which has proved frustrating to me at various times throughout my life, and I've had only a handful of "like-minded" friends cross my life path. 

A good friend once shared with me that growing older and hopefully wiser has it's up side, and in these past months God has put me smack in the middle of several situations in which my perspective is definitely contrary to popular opinion!  I've been troubled by an attitude prevalent among believers that justifies worldly values and  compromises spiritual ones.

We're bound to face temptation in this life, simply by virtue of being human, yet so many of us suffer from temptations we should never have to endure, simply because we've refused to let God lift us to a higher level.
Temptation easily confuses us for a while- we don't know whether something is right or wrong.  We can't escape temptation- it's essential to the well-rounded life of a person, yet it constantly shifts our point-of-view and makes us lose what God has put into us through His Spirit.

As believers we have the idea that we should shield ourselves from some of the things God brings around us.  May this never be, as it is God who engineers our circumstances!  Whatever the circumstances, we must face them while continually abiding with Him in His temptations --temptations to the life of the Son of God in us.  Jesus' honor is at stake in our bodily lives.  

Yet what I've witnessed in recent years is a mind set that diminishes the circumstances God brings to us by deeming them harmless and nontoxic, when in reality they are an attack on His life in us! Temptation should never to be taken lightly, or dismissed as nondestructive.

Being in the world and not of the world  is what sets us apart.  God doesn't save us from temptation, but  He sustains us in the midst of it and grows us leaps and bounds in the process. Raising the standard as believers  sets us apart, in a world that would rather have us conform to the norm.