Choosing Christ Over Culture

As I Was Saying is a forum for a variety of perspectives to foster faith-related conversations among our readers with the goal of mutual learning, even in disagreement. Apart from articles written by editorial staff, these perspectives do not necessarily reflect the views of The Banner.

A few years ago, I started noticing how often culture asks us to build an identity around performance. We are told to be visible, successful, attractive, productive, and endlessly relevant. Even when we say we belong to Christ, it can be easy to let the world disciple us more than Jesus does.

The pressure is subtle. We might not openly reject God, but we can slowly begin to measure our worth by attention, achievement, or approval. We can become more concerned with being impressive than being faithful. We can start shaping our lives around what is celebrated publicly rather than around what is holy privately.

This is one of the great spiritual challenges of our time: learning how to choose Christ over culture again and again.

Christians have always lived in societies that tried to form them. In the first century, believers lived under Roman power, surrounded by values that often clashed with the kingdom of God. In North America today, the pressure looks different, but the struggle is familiar. Culture still tells us what matters. It still offers us a vision of the good life. It still rewards pride, self-promotion, and self-rule. And Jesus still calls us to something better.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” That verse is so familiar that we can miss how radical it really is. Paul is not just encouraging Christians to behave a little differently. He is calling us to resist being shaped by the world and to allow God to transform us from the inside out.

That transformation begins in the mind, but it does not stop there. It reaches our habits, our relationships, our goals, our speech, and our desires. It changes not just what we believe, but how we live.

One of the clearest places this struggle shows up is in how we define success. Culture teaches us to chase more—more money, more recognition, more influence, more comfort. None of those things are automatically sinful. But they become dangerous when they begin to rule us. When success becomes our master, faithfulness becomes secondary.

Jesus offers a very different standard. He never told his followers to make sure they looked important. He told them to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him (Luke 9:23). He praised humility, service, obedience, and perseverance. He taught that the last would be first and that greatness in the kingdom looks like servanthood.

That is not an easy teaching to accept in a culture built on self-exaltation. But it is the way of Christ.

Choosing Christ over culture also affects how we understand identity. The world tells us to look deep within ourselves and define truth on our own terms. Scripture tells us that our truest identity is found in belonging to God. We are not self-created people. We are created by God, called by Christ, and sanctified by the Spirit.

That means our identity is not something we invent. It is something we receive.

For many believers, this is comforting and challenging. It is comforting because we do not have to earn the worth Christ has already given us. But it is challenging because it means surrender. We do not get to place Jesus somewhere on the edge of our lives while keeping full control over the center. Following him means letting his truth reshape us.

Sometimes that reshaping feels costly. It might mean saying no to opportunities that flatter the ego but weaken the soul. It might mean being misunderstood by friends, coworkers, or even other Christians. It might mean choosing quiet obedience over public applause. It might mean letting go of habits and ambitions that no longer fit a life submitted to Christ.

Yet what we lose in worldly approval we gain in spiritual clarity.

There is freedom in no longer needing culture to tell us who we are. There is peace in no longer chasing every trend, every opinion, every standard of success. There is joy in a simpler question: Am I becoming more like Jesus?

That question cuts through a lot of noise.

It also invites honesty. Many of us know what it is like to say we follow Christ while still being shaped by fear, comparison, envy, or pride. We know what it is like to care too much about being seen. We know what it is like to confuse Christian language with Christian maturity. We know how easy it is to look spiritually committed while quietly letting culture set the agenda.

But the answer is not shame. The answer is repentance.

Repentance is not only for dramatic public sins. It is also for the quieter compromises of the heart. It is for the moments when we realize we have been discipled more by social media than by Scripture, more by public opinion than by prayer, more by ambition than by obedience. God is kind to expose what is forming us, because he wants to free us.

When we turn back to him, he does not meet us with disgust. He meets us with mercy.

This is why daily discipleship matters so much. Choosing Christ over culture is rarely one dramatic decision. More often, it is a thousand smaller choices. It is choosing prayer when distraction feels easier. It is choosing Scripture when we would rather scroll. It is choosing humility when self-protection feels more natural. It is choosing faithfulness in ordinary life.

These choices might look unimpressive to the world. But in the kingdom of God, they matter deeply.

The church has an important role here too. We need communities that encourage spiritual formation, not just religious activity. We need churches that help people recognize the difference between cultural Christianity and actual discipleship. We need fellow believers who will lovingly remind us that Jesus is not an accessory to an already crowded life. He is Lord.

When the church is faithful, it becomes a witness to a different way of living. In a restless culture, it offers peace. In a performative culture, it offers sincerity. In a fragmented culture, it offers belonging. In a self-centered culture, it offers the beauty of surrender to Christ.

That witness is needed now more than ever.

The world does not need more Christians who blend in so completely that there is no visible difference. It needs believers whose lives are marked by love, holiness, courage, and conviction. It needs people who are not ruled by every passing value system because they have anchored themselves in the unchanging character of God.

Choosing Christ over culture does not mean withdrawing from the world in fear. It means living faithfully within it. It means loving our neighbors without adopting every assumption around us. It means being present without being conformed. It means remembering that we belong first to the kingdom of God.

That belonging changes everything.

So perhaps the question for each of us is not simply whether we believe in Jesus, but whether we are truly allowing him to form us. Who is discipling our hearts? What is shaping our desires? What standard are we using to measure a good life?

Culture is always making an offer. But so is Christ.

And only one of them leads to life.