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Recently I bought a house. It's been a fantastically exciting and absolutely nerve racking experience and I know that it is only just beginning. I wanted to get this out sooner but as you can understand it has been an incredibly busy time. After signing all the paperwork and moving in I still had to do random housework, put furniture together and start painting. I still need to put up blinds and curtains, put down flooring, paint some more ... the list goes on and on. The joys of home ownership I guess.

I'm very thankful for all the help, encouragement and wisdom people have graciously given throughout this entire process. Everything that I have been given has been a gift from God and this is no exception. This home is not my own but God's and as such I dedicate this home to Him. I pray that I will be wise and use it to bring Him glory.

Becoming Set Apart

We live in an age of humanism. The ideals of political correctness and tolerance have taken over the Christian ideals that once founded this nation. Kids today are being brought up in a system where having faith is seen as foolishness and standing up for that faith is offensive. Theologians and scholars are skeptical of Christ and many actively try to discredit the Gospel.

However, it was not always this way. God used to be an integral part of our experience and yet the nation has turned it's back from God. In 1962 official prayer was banned from public schools and in '63 official bible reading was banned as well. I'm surprised that "Under God" is still in the pledge and that "In God we trust" has not been removed from our money, though not for lack of trying. As a result of the sins of our parents generation, we have been raised in this kind of world and every year more and more kids will go through the same experience.

This is our time! The actions we take today will have a lasting impact, in this world and the next. People are products of their society and if we see the influence of our culture so clearly why are we not trying so despretely to change it and bring it back to God? We are called to be set apart. We are to rewnew our mind (Rom 12:2) and set it on heavenly things (Col 3:2). We need to break free from our present lifestyles where the culture, traditions and mindsets have caused us to become complacent. We are far too comfortable in a mediocre church (at least comparing to the early church in Acts) that is getting trampeled by our society. We are to be set apart for God so that through us His name would be glorified to the ends of the earth.

Of course changing our culture seems like a scary and impossible task. Didn't Moses think the same thing before he brought the Isralites out of Egypt (Exodus 4)? How did the Apostles feel when they were charged with preaching to the very people who criminalized and publicly killed Jesus? Yet they boldly proclaimed the good news and brought glory to God. God was faithful to His servents then, and today is no different.

I am called to become set apart for God. Are you?