Do not conform.
One of the joys of raising teenage boys is that they have friends or classmates who are completely convinced that their ideas are correct. One of my sons was told that the writer of this blog was an intolerant hateful bigot.
It was an interesting dinner conversation. There is a huge pressure to conform to the cults of tolerance and self esteem. To live like others do. And in many ways we all do. Which is why Romans 12 has challenged believers from the time it was written.
1I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.
3For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. 4For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. 6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; 7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; 8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.
It is worthwhile noting that we are not to puff ourselves up, measuring our self esteem as if that is our effectiveness (it is not) but to have a sense of what we can do… and then do it well. We are not to be shameful and refuse to step forward out of a overly pious sense of unworthiness. We are all unworthy. We all fail. Daily.
But we are not also to see ourselves as more than we are. To do that is to conform to the heresy of Oprah — that self esteem and self development is our goal in this life. It is better to listen to the reformed divines: “The chief aim of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever” . It is not about ourselves. It is about, instead, Christ.
