Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1–2).
I am pretty sure that we’re not the only ones who think this world is getting a whole lotta crazy, am I right? My heart hurts with all that is happening to society everywhere. I find myself wanting to stick my head in the sand and block out all news/media stories.
Just unplug – everything.
We Christians, who read our bibles and believe what God says, shouldn’t be surprised (saddened yes – surprised, not so much) by what is happening in the world. We know that things are going to continue to worsen, unfortunately.
G.K. Chesterton wrote, “We do not need a Church that moves with the world; we need a Church that will move the world.” The God-inspired insight of the Church is that conforming with the world is conforming with the patterns of The Fall, the patterns of competition, of pride, anger, jealousy, greed, gluttony, lust and sloth. The Christian Church was instituted by Jesus, not to conform with the ways of the world, but to transform the ways of the world to those of God. This is the Church we need. This is the Church in which God is present. A “church” that conforms to the world is a church that has abandoned God in favor of men. Such a church is in service of the world, not of God.
“Our society continues to deteriorate by political correctness, tolerance, individualism and self helpism.
Christianity is taking on a new face. And it is not Christianity.” – A Whitely
Which is why, now, more than ever, we must remember to not conform to the pattern of this world.
We are not to be conformed to this world. Paul is using the word world here to refer to the spirit of the age. In other words, world refers to the popular worldview that rejects God and His revelation. As unbelievers, we are naturally conformed to the world (Ephesians 2:1–3). As believers, we are no longer conformed to this world because we no longer belong to the spirit of this age. We have been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). Therefore, rather than continuing to conform to this world, we are to be transformed by having our minds renewed.
It is interesting to note that Paul says that we must be transformed by the renewing of our “minds.” The mind is the key to the Christian life. The reason why non-Christians do not respond to Christian truth is that they cannot discern spiritual truth (1 Corinthians 2:14). The gospel is a call for the unbeliever to repent of his sin and embrace Christ by faith. The Greek word translated “repentance” carries the notion of a change of mind. Our thinking must be changed (transformed) from old, ungodly ways of thinking into new, godly ways of thinking. What we know in our minds to be true forms a conviction in our hearts of that truth, and that conviction in our hearts translates into action. Therefore, we must first renew our minds.
The only way to replace the error of the world’s way of thinking is to replace it with God’s truth, and the only infallible source of God’s truth is His revealed Word, the Bible. There are no shortcuts. There is no magical formula for renewing our minds. We must fill our minds with God’s Word. As Jesus prayed to the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
SOURCES:
A. Whitely quote from Facebook friend, Amrita
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