How to Lose Your Uniqueness

Daily Devotional – Tuesday, July 25, 2023
You are an old man. You set a good example for your sons, but they haven’t followed it. Now we want a king to be our leader, just like all the other nations. Choose one for us.
1 Samuel 8:5 (Contemporary English Version)

From the time of Moses became the leader of Israel until the day Saul became king, Israel was a theocracy. God ruled through judges and priests, who inculcated the principles of God’s kingdom among the people. Through obedience to the commandments of God, Israel became God’s special treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. (Read Exodus 19:5-6).

Just Like All the Other Nations

Sadly, during the leadership of Prophet, Judge and Priest Samuel, the children of Jacob took advantage of the judge’s old age and the waywardness of his children to make a specific demand. They told Samuel, “You are an old man. You set a good example for your sons, but they haven’t followed it. Now we want a king to be our leader, just like all the other nations. Choose one for us.” (1 Samuel 8:5).

When Samuel appealed to God, the Lord said, “they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.” (1 Samuel 8:7). For these many years, they had had God as their ruler but now they desired to be controlled by fellow human beings because that was the popular conventional practice.

Sacrificing Identity and Uniqueness

The children of Jacob were tired of being God’s special people and wanted to be like other nations. God had given them laws, teachings, practices and wisdom that had elevated them above their heathen neighbours. Now they wanted to degrade themselves by assessing themselves against imperfect human standards.

In the centuries that followed, the Israelites reaped the painful consequences of wanting to be like the heathen. For example, the Assyrians destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel; relocated the Israelites to foreign lands, and ensured God’s people intermarried with other nations. Consequently, Hebrew lost their identity and rareness.

No Longer Special

The Southern Kingdom of Judah also suffered from invasions by Babylon, deportation of the people a foreign land for seventy years and the general dispersion of Jews from their ancestral lands. They had asked to be like the other nations and they paid heavily for rejecting God’s sovereignty.

God’s people live according to a higher calling that entails God-empowered attitude change that is manifested in outward character transformation. We lose our identity and uniqueness when we adopt the knowledge, philosophies and practices of other people, especially he ungodly ones.

How to Lose Your Uniqueness

Our exceptionality manifests itself through our choice of speech, friends, dressing, food, beverage, entertainment and use of talents and time. Further, we must bear in mind that God has created us as unique beings, hence the need to harness our gifts and talents and leave the world richer than we found it.

Those you live and interact with need to attest that you ascribe to a higher set of beliefs. You lose your uniqueness when you adopt the inferior attitudes, thinking patterns and conduct of the people you should be bringing to Jesus. Which steps will you take today to claim back your distinctiveness as a Christian, thus becoming a true agent of God’s kingdom wherever God had placed you?

Prayer
Heavenly Father, empower me to regain and maintain my uniqueness as a Your child.