The more I strive to become a true disciple of Jesus Christ, the more opposed the world will be toward me. The world will use terms like fanatic or religious nut if I seek to become one of God’s “normal” men. Jesus Christ was God’s greatest expression of the normal; yet the world would not have anything to do with Him because they claimed He was “beside himself” (Mark 3:21, KJV). Alexander Whyte says, “Either He was beside Himself, or they [His critics} were.” There is no middle ground, for the mind of Jesus and the mind of the world are exact opposites. To Jesus, God His Father was the center of His life, the Determiner of every thought and act. To the world, God is a pleasant glaze, a pretty covering, a fragrant perfume, but never the heart and soul of its life and action.
Is it normal to enjoy God and seek a close relationship with Him? The world would say, “OK, but be reasonable.” It becomes uneasy in the presence of a person who spends a great deal of time with God. Is it normal to resist the desires of the flesh and be dead to the attractions of the world? The world says no and looks with fishy eyes at the man who disagrees. He is “different.”
The world is never anti-God; it is little-God. It wants me to have just enough of God to make me “nice,” but never enough to make me expose its heart. Worldly people worship “the God who doesn’t interfere.” The Bible gives me a choice: Am I to be God’s normal man, or the world’s? Whatever I choose, I am bound to please and bound to offend. The eternal question is: Who is worth the pleasing? Moses did not take long to answer: “Choose life in order that you may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).
“For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are of sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ controls us” (2 Corinthians 5:13-14).
Daily with the King 