Want to Be a True Rebel? Be a Christian

You want to REALLY be rebellious and non-conformist? Don’t look to getting thirty tattoos, piercings, and dying your hair five colors. Everybody is doing that nowadays.

Become a follower of Jesus Christ instead. I’m not knocking tattoos or anything else, but being a Christian is totally “against the grain” of what is currently accepted and conventional in Western society. The Father of “Shock Rock,” Alice Cooper (whose real name is Vincent Furnier), once said, “sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll is easy. True Christianity…that’s rebellion.” Getting drunk every weekend, smoking marijuana, viewing porn, accepting a multitude of sexual orientations and genders and more is all celebrated and adored. It’s par for the course for a large segment of our secular friends on Facebook, and to them, it’s just “normal” life.

Being a follower of Christ is far different than all of that. It’s antithetical to what others are doing in this world. The Apostle John wrote, “do not love the world or the things in the world…” (1 John 2:15-17) And Paul similarly stressed, “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

Even Jesus himself was a rebel against the accepted man-made practices and legalism of His day. Pastor Eric Bryant summed it up nicely: “[Jesus] was a man on a mission. He was a radical, a revolutionary, yet tender and kind and loving. He was doing things completely against the rules of the day. He was a mix of justice, kindness, judgment, and grace.”

If you want to be “counter-culture,” look to Jesus Christ. Receive Him as your Lord and Savior. It will at times be tough and trying. But the rewards will far outweigh any adversity you face.