But the Christians, so peculiarly “disfranchised of the world,” so intolerant of the world’s spirit and atmosphere, and standing out in such bold contrast and daring unworldliness, were stigmatized “the third race.” The Christians willingly embraced this stigma. Anything was better than sin. “Let the heathen rave.” Christians belonged to another world. They were “dead to all the globe”—out of joint with all the world.
“Never had the Church so much influence over the world as when she had nothing to do with [being like, yoking to] the world.”
Completely separated from that Roman world, those early Christians plunged back into that sunken Empire to lift it off its hinges and change the entire course of the world’s history.
But in speaking of those early days, Tertullian wrote: “We engage in these conflicts as men whose very lives are not our own.” (LE Maxwell)
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This was shared with me and it has struck me, does my life really reflect as did those earlier believers, a life that is submitted solely and desiring only to seek and please Jesus?? Is the idea of sinning against my dearest Lord so offensive to me that I would gladly embrace any of the attacks the world might throw at me?? Do I take up and carry my cross with me moment by moment of each day in following HIM?? Am I truly living here and now as a member of that Heavenly race?
Thought this very much worth passing along.
God bless
mj