For Jesus, holiness meant being set apart from, or different from, our sinful ways. It didn't mean being set apart from the world, but being consecrated to God in the world. He was God's glory in and for the world.
Some of our confusion on this point arises naturally from the fact that the Bible uses "the world" in a few different ways. For example, we have John 3:16 which says, "For God so loved the world..." and 1 John 2:15, "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him."
Yes, as in the second verse, holiness is the antithesis of worldliness. We are set apart for God in distinction from the way most people have set themselves against him. We must reject these wicked ways, and certainly not love them.
However, we must also see the point that author Tim Chester is trying to make. The world-- that is, the lost people in this fallen world-- desperately needs to see the glory of God in Jesus Christ through us. If that's going to happen, we need to be in the process of becoming more and more like his true image of God and less and less like our broken one.
This helps us understand the point of his little story on page 15 about his daughter's friend who said, "Be a good Jesus today." Of course, we mustn't emphasize Jesus-as-example in a way that marginalizes his unique and exclusive work in dying for us, but it is essential that we live our lives according to his example, being conformed to his image.
Do you have an everyday awareness of living like Jesus?
Do you see how this Christ-likeness must be in the world, not cloistered off from it?
Can you explain how it is both against the world and for the world?
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