Conformed Or Transformed?

Romans 12: 1-2 

Therefore I urge you brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 
And do not be conformed to this World, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 

When we see a "therefore" we need to ask what it's there for. What has just preceded this verse is everything we learned so far in this letter. Keeping all that in mind, we are now to present our bodies to God as though we are the animal offered in sacrifice on the altar. 

We live in our bodies, and we express our thinking and attitudes through our brains and our mouths and our hands and feet, and other body parts. This physical body is the "house" we live in, and it has become the "temple of God" as He lives here with us, by His Spirit inside our spirit. 

So our bodies must be considered His perfect lamb, without defect, on His altar of sacrifice every day. Jesus said to "deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me." This is how to follow Him. 

This physical act is a spiritual service of worship. God wants us to physically live our lives every day as His servants, His slaves, always putting His will before our own. We can only do this as His Holy Spirit in us strengthens us and teaches us what His will is, and leads us into it. 

That's why we are to not be conformed to this World, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How we think determines how we see, how we form our attitudes, how we live our lives. This is how God as our Potter is re-making us into "vessels of honor" out of the dishonorable vessels we were (see the November 10, 2019 blog entry). 

Submitting our thinking processes to God's ways, changing our minds to do it His way instead of ours, will renew our minds, to be able to recognize and desire that good and acceptable and perfect will of God for ourselves. That is how to see with His eyes, and understand with His understanding, instead of the twisted ideas of the World that are so seductive to lead us into the evil that will destroy us. 

That's how important it is for us to learn to listen to His small, quiet whispers inside our spirit, telling us "this is the way, walk here." And why we need to read and study His Word that He had written down for us. 

Everything that has been written is for our instruction, so that we will learn how God rewarded the people who followed His ways, and destroyed those who rebelled against Him. We can read how His faithful lived their lives, and how they returned to God when they messed up. Because we all mess up. 

But if we're serious about living our lives for the glory of our Creator and our Redeemer and our Lord and King, then we will put forth the effort to nourish our spirits every day as regularly as we nourish our bodies every day. 

Do you eat every day? Then be sure to eat some spiritual nourishment, also. Life itself is spiritual, so a healthy, well fed spirit will produce a healthy body, also. 

O my Father, Your ways are so far above our ways, that we need to put forth the effort to seek Your face and Your ways in our thinking and our lives. Help us, Father, to schedule the time each day when we will curl up in Your lap and listen to Your stories. Teach us Your ways to respond to the things that happen in our lives, how to respond to the people we encounter each day, how to consider how the hearer will receive what we say, so that they can also understand Your ways. 

Father, as Your living sacrifice, tie me to the horns of the altar, so that I will not be jumping off of it when I feel the heat. Keep me faithful to Your ways, strengthen me to persevere even when I get weary of the fight, hold me up to keep on keeping on. 

My Father, You will finish everything You have started; help me also to finish what You have led me to start, and not to leave strings hanging. 

Let my life bring honor and glory to You, Father. Let my thinking be along the lines of Your Truth, so that my attitudes will be transformed to Your Love for us all. Let me display Your compassion and mercy and graciousness to everyone whose path crosses mine each day. 

And use me to find some of Your lost sheep, to carry them into the safety and protection of Your One Fold with One Shepherd. 

And every eye shall see, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is our Christ, our Lord God Almighty, the King of the Universe, to the eternal glory of Almighty God the Father, for ever and ever. Amen.

Even so, come swiftly, Lord Jesus!