Once on the margins, we want to be relevant. We seek the approval of those in the center. We try to become what we think the host culture will value and sometimes forget that our first call is to the Lord our God. We confuse our loyalties to the culture (in the name of evangelism) with our loyalties to God because we want to be respected by the secular age. Right here we face the choice between being prophetic and being popular. Both are ways of being relevant, but the former is less gratifying unless our loyalties have changed. Will we continue to be peculiar or will we become contemporary?
The remnant answers: We will put away our idols and be loyal to the Lord our God.
(Scriptures: Jeremiah 8:6-12; 10:1-16; 28:1-14; 2 Kings 17:22-24, 27-29, 32-33, 41; Habakkuk 2:18-20; 1 Peter 2:9-10)
