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Tuesday July 19, 2016

Culture affects our lives at all levels, a fact we must come to terms with. It influences how we look, what shoes we wear, what clothes we put on, and even how we comb our hair. Culture influences how we spend our time, what movies we watch, the music we listen to, the words we speak, and our priorities. However, culture’s most insidious influence is in the lives of those who call themselves followers of Jesus. As followers of Jesus, we should behave in a manner that is counterculture; we are supposed to behave differently. Followers of Jesus are not supposed to fight against the present culture; we just need to be different within the present culture.

 

Such was the case concerning Noah. God instructed Noah to build an ark that he and his family would enter in order to be saved from the flood God was going to send upon the earth. For approximately 140 years, Noah dedicated all of his talents, abilities, and resources to do precisely what God had called him to do which was to build an ark. Can you even begin to imagine how counterculture Noah was? To begin with, Noah was nowhere near a body of water large enough for the vessel he was building. Secondly, it had never before rained upon the earth. Before the flood, water would spring up from the earth. Think about how counterculture Noah must have looked to the rest of the culture of his generation. While the rest of the people were busy trying to keep up with the latest fads, and trying to figure out how to occupy their time, Noah was busy building an ark in the middle of the desert. Noah was so focused on his task that he did not have the time to oppose his culture although he was entirely different from it.

 

What about you, are you a counterculture person? Are you being molded by culture, or are you fighting against the culture? Our calling is to be counterculture, not to be formed by culture or to fight against it. Our beliefs should cause us to look different in the way we conduct ourselves and in every aspect of our lives. When people see you, do you look different? Do your friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers even know you are a follower of Jesus? Do they know what you stand for or what you stand against? Can they actually see the ark you are building?

 

Matthew 24:38-39 NIV

For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

 

To walk in Noah’s shoes means to be counterculture. Not to fight against the culture but rather to be different in the culture.