Living Understanding Pt 33: Renewing

Romans 12:1-2                      1Therefore, 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.  2Do 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.

2Corinthians 4:4                   4The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

2Corinthians 5:14-15, 17      14For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.  15And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again….  17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Hebrews 13:14-15                 15Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.  16And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.

1Peter 2:4-5                           4As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him— 5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Living sacrifice

Although Paul was writing to a metropolitan community (Rome), the heritage of his people was not far from his view.  Their ancient tradition was that of the sacrificial system, whereby one-year-old animals were offered as atonement for the people’s sins.  After Christ’s death and resurrection that system was seen has having never been properly efficacious, because true forgiveness of one’s sins was only achieved through His once-and-for-all sacrifice.  But all his readers of Jewish heritage were intimately aware of this system that operated daily in everyone’s lives.

But now we have a new way:  Not through the taking of the lives of goats and rams do we receive forgiveness for our sins.  But through the acceptance of Christ as our Savior, and the offering of our own lives as evidence of our salvation.  We should be careful of what we mean when we use the word sacrifice.  People in the 21st Century don’t sacrifice much anymore; this is the me-first generation after all.  But God does appreciate the heart that sacrifices, not in the blood of animals, but in the willing giving up of personal desire in favor of the need of another.  It is a sacrifice to help someone in need when one’s own self is struggling through some issue.  The idea in this passage is that we give up our own will, our own way of doing things by deliberately choosing to follow God’s way.

True and proper worship

And this kind of life is what God accepts as true and proper worship.  It one could somehow discern the hidden hearts of believers sitting in their congregational seats, enjoying some sort of show, later listening to a millionaire preacher intoning about the virtues of a Christ-based belief system, but all the while harboring attitude about some fellow pew-sitter, one could be forgiven for not understanding what was happening.  God wants us to be true believers from the hearts with trust in Jesus fully integrated into our souls.  This means what we say we believe in must fully align with the way we live our lives.  When Jesus encountered someone in sin, he didn’t condemn them; instead, he loved them for who they were, not what they did, and told them to go and sin no more.  Also, the slaughtered animals in the old sacrificial system didn’t really understand what was happening.  But here is an opportunity for us to fully, willingly, and deliberately choose to worship God; to set ourselves apart.

Most of us think we live our lives this way, but most of us don’t.  It is hard to be consistently loving:  We don’t really love the LORD our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, much less love our neighbor as our self.  But everything we have ever done has one profound component:  That first step.  We never get to our goal if we never start. 

Not conformed, but transformed

So, loving like God wants us to love requires a change.  We grew up loving only if we were loved back.  It was conditional—you do for me, and I’ll do for you.  But God wants us to turn away from the way the world does things and turn toward His ways.  But change in action first requires a change in thought.  To not conform to ‘the pattern of this world’ but being transformed by the ‘renewing of your mind’ requires a person to deliberately and permanently change direction.

Before we came to Christ, we lived in the world and conformed to its pattern of life; we lived in its ways of sin and death.  Coming to Christ brought freedom from sin and death, but we still live in that sinful world.  And that is fully God’s intent, because He wants us to show the world God’s different ways.  The Word calls it salt and light.  So, making a deliberate change in the way we live is in full agreement with the Word.  It shows the world through friends and family that there is a better way.

What about me?

It is easy to say that in accepting Christ as my Savior that I am free from the Law of Sin and Death, but very hard to put that into action.  The accepting of Christ is the first step in the life-long journey of ‘renewing our mind’.  Nothing is the same, but also nothing is easy, because we still have our sin nature and won’t be completely free of it until we walk with Him in the Millenium. 

So, every day is a day of decision:  Will we walk with Jesus, or will we walk with the world?  When you get up in the morning, do you ask Jesus to teach you something new that day?  To help transform your life?  Or do you just enter into a routine way of living much like the old you?  It is definitely true that a deliberate turn toward Jesus sets in motion a slow and gradual, but permanent, change in one’s outlook.  Slowly, but surely, we are transformed by the renewing of our minds.  But this process doesn’t happen by accident; we have to want it with every fiber of our being.  Let’s start today.  Let’s say, “Jesus, guide me, shape me, and transform me.  Dot it everyday Jesus; I don’t want to be the way I was.”