Are You Popular or Peculiar?
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
“If we are counted among the redeemed, we are content to be odd and alone in this world.” – C.H. Spurgeon
Did your high school have a yearbook and if so, did your classmates vote for Most Popular, Most Attractive, Most Athletic, and Most Likely to Succeed? How about Cutest Couple or Class Clown?
I was fortunate enough to be named Most Likely to Succeed in both 9th and 12th grade, but I imagine the other students at Pennsauken Junior and Senior High Schools figured I would become a high-powered lawyer and/or a politician. Actually, so did I… until I got saved in my senior year and God redirected my life.
All of a sudden, fame and fortune didn’t mean a hill of beans to me. All I wanted to do was to serve God to the very best of my ability… period. And so, within a few years of graduating from college I found myself launching America’s first-ever athletic prison ministry, something I am still doing 38 years later in addition to working with at-risk youth and pastoring a local church.
Maybe not a success in the eyes of the world – or from my classmates’ perspective – but I’m doing exactly what God created me to do. And that, my friends, is my definition of success.
You see, Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36) and that as believers, this world is not our true home either (John 17:14-16). The Apostle Paul reiterated that point in Philippians 3:20-21 as did the writer of Hebrews in 11:13-16.
Finally, Peter reminded his readers in I Peter 2:9 that we are God’s own special (the KJV says “peculiar”) people. That means that our values and ambitions are often diametrically opposed to what this world holds dear and considers valuable. And yes, like Charles Spurgeon said in today’s quote, that makes us look, sound, and act a bit odd from their vantagepoint.
However, it is far better to be considered out-of-step with a sin-stained world than to be in lockstep with it.
“If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first.” John 15:18 (BSB)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
