Culture is a mess.  We’re surrounded by constant conflict, chaos, and consumption.  Our culture seems to have an insatiable appetite for more.  More stuff, more power, more me.  From countless reality TV shows to the explosion of social media, the culture we live in is all about the elevation of self.  Turn on the news and you’re bombarded with political scandal, international turmoil, social unrest, economic deterioration…we are a hot mess.   And as tempting as it is as Christ-followers to completely remove ourselves from the culture around us, we are called to live in the tension between a holy God and an unholy world.

If we take a closer look at the life of the church in Thessalonica, we can see that thousands of years later, we are dealing with a culture very similar to theirs…a culture far from God.  And through Paul’s words to them, we can see that they were living in the same tension we are.

“It is God’s will that you should be holy; that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;” -I Thessalonians 4:3-5

So how do we live in the tension?  How do we transcend our culture in order to reach it with Jesus? 

Paul challenges us to be holy.  He warns us as he does because no Christian is immune to the temptation of the culture around us.   Our culture seduces us to love ourselves first, while holiness challenges us to love Jesus first.

A life in love with Jesus is definitely counter-cultural.  Choose to put Him first, putting everything else, your own body included, under his reign and you will transcend culture.  Don’t choose to leave our culture, choose to love it and lead it to Jesus….to be relevant, yet peculiar.  We are recognizably different because our allegiance isn’t to ourselves.   Bottom line: the choices we make matter.

So what are some ways you are loving Jesus first?

God desires us to live a pure life with our bodies.  Ask yourself, are you learning to control your body in a way that is holy and honorable?  Do you have accountability in that?

Are you pursuing a lifestyle of holiness?  Would people far from God see you as peculiar?  What’s holding you back?

Choose to identify the culture we live in, engage it and rise above it…be holy.  In the two verses before, Paul urges the Thessalonians to live in order to please God, more and more.  My prayer is that your appetite for holiness increases “more and more” as you live in the tension.