I had a good friend call my attention recently to the first several verses of I John 4. "...greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." Those are familiar words ... make a lot of sense. But my friend's calling my attention to them made me want to dig a bit further.

Let's look at verses 1 - 6 from The Message ...

My dear friends, don't believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.

Here's how you test for the genuine Spirit of God. Everyone who confesses openly his faith in Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who came as an actual flesh-and-blood person—comes from God and belongs to God. And everyone who refuses to confess faith in Jesus has nothing in common with God. This is the spirit of antichrist that you heard was coming. Well, here it is, sooner than we thought!

My dear children, you come from God and belong to God. You have already won a big victory over those false teachers, for the Spirit in you is far stronger than anything in the world. These people belong to the Christ-denying world. They talk the world's language and the world eats it up. But we come from God and belong to God. Anyone who knows God understands us and listens. The person who has nothing to do with God will, of course, not listen to us. This is another test for telling the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of deception.

This can sound almost a bit elitest, can't it? Sort of like "Well, you have to be in our club to understand this stuff and, if you're not in the club, well, I'm really sorry..."

And some churches and Christians have tried to make it that way. But I am quite certain that is not the way that John intended it. He intended for Christians to live in the world ... not of it. As culturally-relevant salt in our world, we will be a part of this world but yet be apart from it, calling attention to our saviour's love, grace, and compassion.

Have a blessed day. Shine on!