Death Reminds Me How to Truly Live

NOTE: The following are some reflections I posted on Facebook, starting April 28th, 2012, after loosing a brother in Christ under tragic circumstances…

Earlier this week, I witnessed a profound display of faith in God in the face of a horrific tragedy. I observed a distinctively Christian response to death. It has caused me to ask, is there a distinctively Christian way to deal with all of life's issues? What is a truly Christian way to live, die, suffer, dress, eat, rest, speak, work, play, relate, buy, sell, posses, release, look, listen, think, care, and love?

Here's the rub, lip-service to faith in Christ and truly trusting and obeying Him with reckless abandon, that's altogether another matter. How hard it is to be IN the world but not OF it. How rare to find that soul, who is IN... touching, loving, connecting, serving, real, authentic; but not OF... holy, humble, pure, innocent, righteous, without guile... seeking His face alone... not power, prestige, pleasure (temporal), preeminence, popularity, prosperity, or piety (for its own sake).

Have we allowed ourselves to become too comfortable and familiar with this realm? Are we as peculiar as we ought to be? Are we truly fools for Christ? It seems hard at times to distinguish us from the world. We so often speak, look, joke, laugh, watch, listen, think, feel, dress, and respond as our pagan (descriptive, not derogatory) counterparts. What does it look like to BE distinctively, profoundly, truly Christ-centered, Spirit-led, and God-honoring in this age?