still fighting my credibility

This passage has drawn a lot of my attention this week:

As you come to him, the living Stone -- rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him -- you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says:

"See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts him will never be put to shame."

Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,

"The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone,"

and,

"A stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall."

They stumble because they disobey the message -- which is also what they were destined for.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. (1 Peter 2:4-12)

I try to wrap my mind around this term "holy priesthood," wanting to understand what else God would desire of my heart. I think of the awesome description of the holy priesthood described in Ezekiel 44:15-31, and while I love to claim this as my goal, I keep bumping into that one thing that prevents me from living completely set apart for my Lord. My struggle continues to be with my credibility.

I have a co-worker that has walked the less traveled road, and she's the butt of a lot of jokes behind her back. While I don't necessarily agree with all of the measures she has taken, I've come to realize that she's never concerned herself with being credible among her peers. She's a 40-year-old woman that still lives with her parents, her entertainment interests are off-beat, her social interactions are awkward, and she has recently become engaged to a man that will be blessed with the gift that she has never given herself to another man.

It occurred to me that it doesn't bother her in the least to be different. Maybe she's become so used to being the outsider that it's a comfortable place, but I have recently become greatly convicted by how I have treated her in my own heart. God has also allowed me to recognize another slice of pride in my life.

You see, I have no problem admitting my sexual purity, my disinterest with technology or entertainment, or my reasons for abstaining from other common acts with other believers. If anything, the church's seeming disinterest with being set apart from the world only makes me feel comparably more holy.

But God is not interested in comparisons, nor is He interested in demonstrating His glory to those that have acquired as much of God as they care to receive. He desires to manifest His glory to the lost, so that they may recognize their sin and come to honor Him with holy lives. When I straddle my faith for the sake of credibility, becoming "Radical" Anthony for the complacent believer and "Cool-in-the-know" Anthony for the lost, I sacrifice the holiness that He desires to demonstrate as the standard.

This is the trap: we think that the lost will not recognize our faith without identifying on some pop culture or social level -- in reality, what we communicate is that they can come to Christ and sacrifice none of the common things in their life. Clearly, if the common things are our bridge to credibility among the lost, we cannot with confidence express that the lost should place Him before these things.

I have come to realize that it is a much better thing to be rejected in holiness than accepted in my camaraderie. No testimony speaks louder than from the man who denies himself of common rights for the sake of a purer life. This isn't about a legalistic approach to following God. This is about a willingness to express to God through my life that the filler isn't necessary. Outside of my love for God and the overflowing love for mankind, everything else is worthless. I need to stop justifying the "usefulness" of common things, and begin pursuing Him without regard for who notices.

They are to teach my people the difference between the holy and the common and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean...I am to be the only inheritance the priests have. You are to give them no possession in Israel; I will be their possession. (Ezekiel 44:23,28)