Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer 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
In the early days of my Christian life, my friends and I read Romans 12:2 in the negative sense. We thought it meant, “You will be transformed mostly by staying away from sinful movies,” and we had a whole list of bad things to stay away from so that we would end up transformed. But there is much more to this principle than clamping down on ourselves and staying away from bad things. Your mind is not renewed primarily by staying away from bad things but by filling your mind with the truth about God. You don’t need better sin-avoidance techniques but a new vision of what God’s heart looks like. Flowing from that vision will be a new vision of what you look like to God. When I fill my mind with what God’s emotions look like, I experience new dimensions of grace to stay away from the “bad things.”
{ PRAYER STARTER }
Give me a vision of Your heart, O God, and the things of this world that used to defeat me and cause me to sin will no longer have any appeal to me. Flood over my heart and mind with Your presence.
You don’t need better sin-avoidance techniques
but a new vision of what God’s heart looks like.
