Being Different

Being Different 

Monday, May 12, 2025 

God used Israel to reveal Himself to the world in the Old Testament times and God has been using the Church to reveal Himself to the world since the time of Christ. In both cases, the revealing of God would come through His called-out people Being Different. 

God’s called out and chosen people would live different lives than the people of the world. This being different calling was carefully defined by God to ancient Israel. 

Deuteronomy 18:9-14 (NLT) 

“When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, be very careful not to imitate the detestable customs of the nations living there. 10 For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, 11 or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the LORD your God will drive them out ahead of you. 

13 But you must be blameless before the LORD your God. 14 The nations you are about to displace consult sorcerers and fortune-tellers, but the LORD your God forbids you to do such things.” 

God called Israel to be different than the pagan world around them. God would use that difference to reveal Himself and His Holiness to the watching world. God was calling Israel into holiness, to experience the holy ways of God, vs. the unholy ways of the pagan world. God called Israel to live for Him instead of living for the world. Israel would be different. 

This difference caused many to hate Israel. The called-out people of Israel strived to live differently than the world around them and that has caused much of the world to hate the Jewish people. This continues even today. 

The same thing holds true in the New Testament time of Christ and the Church. God has called the Church to live for Him instead of living for the world…no longer living for self, but for God. God has specifically called us to live different lives than the pagan world of our day. This will cause the world to hate us because we refuse to go along with their pagan practices and cultures. 

1 Peter 4:2-4 (NLT) 

You won’t spend the rest of your lives chasing your own desires, but you will be anxious to do the will of God. 

3 You have had enough in the past of the evil things that godless people enjoy—their immorality and lust, their feasting and drunkenness and wild parties, and their terrible worship of idols. 

4 Of course, your former friends are surprised when you no longer plunge into the flood of wild and destructive things they do. So they slander you. 

So they slander you. They slandered Israel and they will slander the church as well. The church struggles with this hatred from the world and the temptation is to go along with the world to pacify the hatred for being so different. But going along with the world is to oppose God’s calling in our lives. 

Ephesians 2:1-3 (NLT) 

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. 

2 You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world. He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. 

3 All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else. 

Israel revealed God to the world by being different and the world hated Isarel. 

The Church is revealing God and the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world by being different and the world will also come to hate the church. But we must never forget… 

John 15:18-19 (NLT) 

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. 

19 The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you. 

Maranatha, Hosanna, Hallelujah and Amen, 

Terry Cooper