Conformity

We all try it don't we. We attempt to conform to the ways of others so that we cand feel good and accepted. We follow after others without thought to what is really going on and if what we are following in that person is really something that we should be following. The world is all about conformity and "falling in line." However, God is all about doing something different. God is all about non-conformity and doing something that is different and makes others say or think, "they will never be able to do that," or "what are they doing?" Jesus did not come and conform to his world. He came and shook up the religious establishment and did not just "fall in line." Jesus even said:

"Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?"

Luke 6:39

I just read Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on self-reliance. He writes "conformity is just playing a game of blind man's bluff." Remember the verse from yesterday:

Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Romans 12:2

So today do not just conform. I am not talking about going out and being purposefully rebellious. I am talking about questioning your own motives for doing what you are doing, asking yourself why you make the decisions you do, and begin to make decisions that are good for you and ones that honor the call and gift that God has placed in you since your birth. Do not conform, but be transformed and transform those around you. Conformity means that we all lead each other off a cliff and into an abyss. The abyss is a place where God is lost and the wonder of knowing our Creator is never felt. Fun and excitement gets lost because we all stand around thinking that we must conform to what we are taught and get in line. I know that what God places in each of us as our passion to be lived while we are here usually goes against conforming to live it out. Don't become so used to the culture around you, even your church culture, that creativity gets lost. Let God bring out the best of you and be mature.

Namaste'