“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
– Romans 12:1-2

Living in a post-modern society with its pressure to be relative to the culture of the day makes it difficult to go against the flow. The ‘no-absolute’ mindset, which is supposed to liberate us, is in fact destroying our relationship with God and when it comes to church and spiritual matters, it seems to be even harder to distinguish between the true and false out there.

What is Church? Church, as we know, is not the building that we go to on Sundays, but a body of ‘called-out’ believers under the headship of Jesus Christ. It is one body, worldwide, made up of many different members. The purpose of the church is to glorify God (1 Corinthians 10:31) and to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20). The function of the church is then to baptize these disciples and to feed them the Word of God.

The church of Jesus Christ comes in many different flavours and varies from the very formal, traditional, liturgical church on the one side to the very open, no-order, no-formalities church on the other side. Variety is good and God made people different from one another. It is ok for believers to worship God in different ways, but there are a couple of important things for us to consider inside this variety.

“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” – Acts 2:42

Many horrible things have been done in the past in the name of the church and it won’t help us much to look at church history for a good example of what it should be like. The book of Acts however, shows us a solid Biblical model of the church as God intended it to be. This church was filled, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:42, we see four basic spiritual activities that are essential to any fellowship of believers.

“For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame—who set their mind on earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” – Philippians 3:18-20

How often have you thought about having citizenship in heaven? The Bible urges us to set our mind on heavenly things and calls us to live set-apart lives from the world (1 John 2:15)(Romans 12:2). The reason why it is so important to set our lives apart for Jesus is because the Bible tells us in 1 John 1 that God is light and that there is no darkness in Him at all. The Bible also teaches that we cannot have fellowship with God when we are in darkness and that the worldly mind is hatred against God (Romans 8:7). The fact is that we can either be for God or against Him and nothing in-between exists.

But do we really know what set-apart means? The synonyms for set-apart are: detached, isolated, separated, etc. Do we really live separate from the world? Are we detached from what the world thinks is acceptable? Do we isolate ourselves from the flow of the masses and swim upstream? …or do we blend with the rest of the world and try not to stand out too much? Sadly too many people who call themselves “Christian” today, live in the world and enjoy the things of the world. They enjoy the same movies, watch the same DVD’s, listen to the same music and appreciate the same art as the world.