Dare to Be Different

Being different in biblical times carried the same stigma that it often does today. If people were born not looking like everyone else, they were ridiculed and even ostracized from their communities. It would be awesome if we could each be accepted for who we are, with all our shortcomings, strengths, and uniqueness; but sadly, the world isn’t this kind. From the time we’re born, some of us are taught to hide behind masks or to try to be someone else. This means that we won’t grow up nurturing the dream God has placed in our hearts, because we’re too focused on trying our hardest to fit in. Some of us are stuck in neutral because we’re busy devaluing our differences rather than celebrating them, and this means we lose valuable time that should be spent honing and embracing the thing that makes us unique.

It should come as no surprise to us that Heavenly Father wants us to accept our differences so that we will squash this notion that we have to be like everyone else. As we grow older and more mature, we will discover that our uniqueness can bring us closer to understanding our purpose in the Will of God. He tells us in Ephesians 1:4-5 that even before He made the world, He loved us, and not only this, but He chose us to be His very own. He handpicked us to be like His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, and has adopted us into His family. Why did God do this for us? Ephesians 1:5 tells us why. It says that He did it because it gave Him great pleasure.

When we think about all that God has done for us, we should be jumping for joy every moment of each day, but most of us don’t come close to doing this. One of the major reasons why we don’t is because we’re unhappy with ourselves. We can change this, and we should. You can’t be anyone else but yourself no matter how much you try. And the yummy thing about this is that no one can be you no matter how much they try. No one can be as good at being you as you can. So, one of the great strategies of life is to become hungry for success, and to direct this hunger for success at being the ‘you’ God wants you to be.

Romans 12:1-2(MSG) gives us all the wisdom we need to live boldly and authentically ourselves. It says, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” He doesn’t make mistakes, and He didn’t make a mistake when He made you. When we get in line with His desire for our lives, He will change us from the inside out, so that our confidence is not misplaced, but firmly anchored in the reality of His love.

To dare to be different is to refuse to allow the opinions of others to shape and mold how we value ourselves. People can be wishy washy; they think you’re the bee’s knees one minute and kick you to the curb the next. God’s opinion of us is the only one that matters. In John 15:18-19(MSG), Jesus Christ said, “If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world’s terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God’s terms and no longer on the world’s terms, the world is going to hate you.” By this, we know that we’re going to have hatters, but it’s okay. Romans 8:31(NLT) asks the question, “If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” No one is greater than our God, and if He is on our sides, we can’t lose. So, we can dare to accept ourselves with all our differences, because God does. We were made for His glory. He loves us and no one is more powerful than Him.■

Scripture taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. 

“Dare to Be Different” by Alexandra Copeland.Copyright© 2020. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.