"Live Like No One Else" (by Wes Hazel–originally published October 17)

Note: The following article originally appeared in the bulletin for the Main Street church of Christ in Manchester, Tennessee. It was written by the minister, Wes Hazel. It is reprinted here with his permission.

Dave Ramsey counsels many people on his daily radio show that the secret to financial success is not to fall into the same traps that the majority of our society falls into. The secret to success is to live like no one else. When we live like no one else is living (in his case, not taking on debt), this enables us to build wealth over time. This wealth gives us a standard of living that is above normal. We can live like no one else.

While this principle definitely has merit in regards to our finances, it is also true in regards to the Christian life as a whole. As a child of God we must live like no on else. We must abstain from those sinful desires of the flesh that the majority of the world indulges in every day. Peter wrote about how the world views the Christian life in 1 Peter 4:4. He wrote, “And in all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excess of dissipation, and they malign you.” It is this difference in your life that makes you a Christian and separates you from a lost and dying world.

The reason that we must live like no one else is so that we might live like no one else. It is this life of devotion to the Lord which will ultimately by the grace of God allow us to enter into eternal paradise of Heaven. The majority of the world will not be able to go there, only the faithful few will. In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus said, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide, and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and many are those who enter by it. For the gate is small, and the way is narrow that leads to life, and few are those who find it.”

Truly, we must live like no one else today, so that we might live like no one else tomorrow.