“But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” (Matthew 11:16-19 NASB1995)

We live in a generation of people much like this today, but not just the people out in the world who have no relationship with God at all, as these people appeared to be. But this way of thinking and behaving has worked its way into the gatherings of the church to where many who profess faith in Jesus Christ have taken on a similar attitude and way of thinking about life. For worldliness has seeped its way into the church’s gatherings, and so many people have taken on the ways of the world, and not the ways of the Lord.

So, if you are following the ways of the Lord, according to the teachings of the Scriptures, with sincere biblical faith in Jesus Christ, and by faith in Jesus Christ you are living separate (different, unlike) the world, because you are being conformed by God to the character of Jesus Christ, which is what it means to be holy, then you are likely to be faced with some of this same kind of treatment as what Jesus and John the Baptist faced. And it will be because you don’t conform to the ways of this sinful world. You stand out!

And so those who are worldly may find you odd because you don’t join in with them in all the things that they do, and in their conversations which they have about all that is of this world, which is not of God. You don’t think like they do, and so they may judge you falsely based off their own way of thinking and behaving. And they may judge you by themselves and by their own traditions and culture, because you stand out as different. Or they may judge you by their own self-made religious and legalistic standards.

But they can be fickle, too, in their judgments, like they were with Jesus and John the Baptist, judging them equally in specific areas where they appeared to be doing the opposite of each other. I had an experience like that where one church leadership was accusing me of acting like I had it all together, which I was not doing, but I did change. Then we moved, and we were part of a different church fellowship, and there they judged me because I didn’t have it all together, because God was doing a work of healing in my life.

So some people are not going to like you no matter what you do unless you conform to their image and you become like them in character, in word, and in deed. They just won’t be comfortable being themselves around you because you aren’t like them. For if you are serious about your walk of faith in the Lord Jesus, and if your life is committed to the Lord, to doing what pleases him, and in living different from (unlike) the world, living to please God, (and I don’t mean super weird or radical), you will appear odd to them.

The people of Jesus’ time, though not all of them, not only accused Jesus of being a gluttonous man and a drunkard, because he drank some wine and because he ate like normal people ate, but they also accused him of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners because he ministered his love and grace to all people, and so he ate with some of them in order to share with them the message of the gospel of our salvation. Jesus was not in intimate fellowship with the ungodly, but he loved them, and he ministered to them.

Therefore, many of the people who were bringing these charges against the Lord were hypocrites, for they were sinners themselves, for they were rejecting Jesus as the Christ. And they were bringing false charges against him in their arrogance and in their disapproval of him and of who he claimed to be, who was God. Although they may have claimed to be religious people who believed in the one true God, they fought against God when they fought against Jesus. So they didn’t know the God some of them claimed to know.

And that can be true today of all who profess faith in Jesus Christ, but who are still living worldly and ungodly lives for self-pleasure, and not for God.

For Jesus Christ taught that to come to him we must deny self, take up our cross daily (die daily to sin), and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to living in sin and for self, we will lose our lives for eternity. But if we deny self, die daily to sin, by the Spirit, and we walk in obedience to our Lord and to his commands, in his power, then we have eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one DOING (obeying) the will of God (see Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23).

(Matthew 7:13-14,21-23; Luke 9:23-26; John 10:27-30; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 2:5-10; Romans 3:23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Corinthians 10:1-22; Galatians 5:16-24; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:17-32; Ephesians 5:3-6; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:1-19; Hebrews 4:1-13; Hebrews 10:19-39; Hebrews 12:1-2; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 1:1-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22)

For Our Nation

An Original Work / September 11, 2012
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love
Recording Via Gerry Peters, music producer and arranger

Bombs are bursting. Night is falling.
Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.
Trust Him with your life today.
Make Him your Lord and your Savior.
Turn from your sin. Follow Jesus.
He will forgive you of your sin;
Cleanse your heart, made new within.

Men betraying: Our trust fraying.
On our knees to God we’re praying,
Seeking God to give us answers
That are only found in Him.
God is sovereign over all things.
Nothing from His mind escaping.
He has all things under His command,
And will work all for good.

Jesus Christ is gently calling
You to follow Him in all ways.

Men deceiving: We’re believing
In our Lord, and interceding
For our nation and its people
To obey their God today.
He is our hope for our future.
For our wounds He offers suture.
He is all we need for this life.
Trust Him with your life today.

Worldly, Not Godly Mindsets
An Original Work / December 28, 2025
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love