"Be _____ for I am holy."

A few weeks I left you with this thought:

"Being different because you're doing the right thing even when no one else is, and being different for the sake of being different, are two different things."

Let's talk about that for a bit.

As Christian young people, we're often told that we should be "different" from the world. Now I want to make this clear right away. I agree with that 100%. We should be different from the world. However, I think that this is often misconstrued to mean that we should just be different. I do not agree with that.
What on earth do I mean by that?
The question is not necessarily if we're different, or even how we're different. Most importantly, it's about why we're different.
I confused this for a long time. I thought that "being different" only meant wearing different clothes, talking differently, and hanging out with different people. Don't get me wrong, none of that is bad, but I was doing it for the wrong reason. I was doing it because it made me different.

I was trying to be different for the sake of being different.
But is that really what we're called to?

Leviticus 11:45b says "You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy."
I want you to notice what it says. But mainly, I want you to notice what it doesn't say. It does not say "be different for I am holy", it says "be holy for I am holy".

What does that mean? It means that we should not be different for the mere sake of being different, but be different because we are striving to be holy, even when the world around us is not. It goes back to the 'transformation' idea. If we are transformed, renewed, alive people living in an old, dark, dying world, we will be different.

The main difference is this:
If we are different for the sake of being different, we are focusing on the world around us to find our identity.
If we are different because we are striving for holiness when the world around us is not, then we are finding our identity by focusing on God.

We may, even should, dress different, talk different, live different, than the world around us. Our walk should look different. But instead of looking at the world around us and thinking, "how can I be different than them?" it's time to look at Christ's holiness, and say, "How can I be more like Him?"

Let us be young people who stand out in our generation not because of our "differences", but because of how we are striving towards holiness. We are not young people living different from the world... we are young people living more like Christ.