The Narrow Road

Being on the narrow road whose destiny is life makes me a minority in a world where, sadly, most are on the wide road leading to destruction. I should be doing all I can to reach those who are on the wrong road. Love demands it. But I must also understand that I am headed in the opposite direction of the world; our values are subsequently in opposition.
What does that mean? First, it means what I believe is important the world believes is foolishness. They cannot as John says, "know me." They cannot understand what "makes me tick." If they do understand to any degree what I value, they will be offended. Jesus warned us that being the light of the world will gain us the enmity of those who walk in darkness--those who love their dark deeds as deeply and unconditionally as "God so loved the world." They hate us because our Spirit-empowered deeds of light prove that they are of the darkness.
If I find myself in harmony with those who are in the darkness, I need to reassess my values. I have lost my distinctiveness; I am the most worthless thing in the world--saltless salt. The church today, individually or corporately--is not called upon to embrace the culture. We are called upon to love those blinded by the culture's godless values; we are not called on to imitate them in order to prove somehow that we love them. We are so intent today to prove our godliness by adapting our life and our system of values to the world's lifestyle and system of values. When individual Christians and our churches are little different than the culture around them, they are guilty of spiritual adultery. They are striving to serve two masters. They are betraying the love of their true Master and Husband. And they will raise up a faithless generation behind them.
God's demand for righteousness has never wavered and never will. The term "saints" means "holy ones." His great complaint against His people Israel was that they they were no different than the nations around them: same treasures, same loves, same practices. When they embraced the surrounding cultures, they fell out of God's embrace. Not by His choice--by their choice.
I believe that if the church today in America honestly looks at its impact on its culture, it must admit that something is amiss. And it's not with the world but with the church. We are not living lives full of grace and truth. We are not glorifying--explaining--God to a lost culture. Some of them are groping in the dark looking for God, and we are guilty of blindfolding them.