How to appear different without changing
Lady Antebellum is now Lady A.
The 4 letter D word is now darn.
The F word is fudge.
I could go on, but the point is that symbolism will never replace substance. Even though we may change the word, we aren’t actually changing what it represents.
[Tweet “Symbolism will never replace substance.”]We can say gosh darn it all we want and feel good because we didn’t say the other thing that is supposed to stay unsaid, but the heart that held the emotions and beliefs that produced the words that came out of the mouth is the same even if some of the letters and syllables changed.
We can say Lady A without saying the word that has been deemed offensive, and yet the A is just shorthand for the same word. So, the only change that has occurred is in name only.
Now, I don’t know the members of the group personally, so this isn’t a commentary on what they may believe as much as it’s just a very obvious example of what is an equally serious problem in the body of Christ.
Too many Christians are Christians in name only. Nothing has actually changed internally, but things seem to have changed externally.
We say fudge instead of, well, that other word. Our Sunday mornings look different now, at least a couple of times a month when we go to church (which is a couple of times a month more than we ever thought we would). Our giving may look different, too, even if it’s only a $10 or $20 bill on a few of those visits.
We can look different without actually being different, but when we really do change, everything will change.
[Tweet “We can look different without actually being different, but when we really do change, everything will change.”]Real change might have led to Lady Antebellum changing its name to Lady Anti-Antebellum, or Lady Z because the members want us to know that they were so radically changed in their beliefs about how our country existed before the Civil War that they went to the opposite end of the alphabet to get the letter for the name.
Ok, that’s a little extreme, but you get my point. Change — real change — is extreme! Don’t settle for appearances when God wants you to experience change.
Don’t just look different. Be different.
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