The Power of THEN (no not Zen)

[A Series of Thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"THEN you will be able to test and approve what God's will is,

his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Romans 12:2b

The Bible is full of powerful words. Words that encapsulate the truth of our faith. Words like sacrifice, blessing, atonement, assurance, sin, faith. Words that have layers, like an onion (some even come with an odor and make you cry). Words that you can spend hours studying and still not exhaust their meaning. Preachers love words like these. We can preach a 32 week sermon series on any one of them and still have material left over. Words like these give depth and breadth and life to our understanding of God and faith.

But there are other kinds of words in the Bible that are just as powerful if you understand what is going on around them. They are ‘connective words’. Words like ‘therefore’, ‘because’, ‘finally’, even the word ‘and’ is powerful because it connects two or more thoughts while saying that they are still unique (like getting married: the two become one while not losing their ‘two-ness’). These connective words are absolutely critical in order to understand the flow of thought in a Biblical passage. If we ignore them we run the risk of misinterpreting the true meaning and we end up missing the value and blessing of what they are connecting us to.

Another one of these simple connective words is found here in Romans 12:2 and provides a great ending to this blog-series on Romans 12:1-2. It’s the word ‘then’. It connects everything that Paul has said thus far in chapter 12 to what he now says about the “good, pleasing and perfect” will of God. Who doesn’t want to know what God’s will is? Who doesn’t want to find out the plan and purpose that God has for each of us? And yet too many times we jump to this without being connected to what leads us to it. In other words, we sometimes beg and plead and bargain with God for Him to tell us what His will for our life is without realizing that His will is often revealed naturally to the one who is living in submission and surrender to Him.

Paul has just said that we are to offer ourselves as “living sacrifices” to Him. This is an act of “spiritual worship”. He says that we are not to “conform any longer to the pattern of this world”, instead we are to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind”. If we are living like this, if we are seeking Him in every way, if we are yielding our will to His will, our mind to His mind, our spirit to His spirit, “THEN”, Paul says, we will “be able to test and approve what God’s will is, His good, pleasing and perfect will”.

The word ‘then’ is essential if we are to understand what Paul is saying. The knowledge of GOD’s will is dependent upon the surrender of OUR will to Him. You wouldn’t see this if not for that simple word ‘then’ connecting surrender with knowing God’s will. And in the end, we usually find that God’s good, pleasing and perfect will is not just revealed TO a surrendered heart, His will for us IS a surrendered heart. Knowing His will is often simply the ability to see and rest in the fact that our surrendered heart is all that we really need to know. We want to know God’s plan, God’s purpose, God’s leading, God’s wisdom for our lives, and sometimes He gives us a clear sense of what those are. But before all of these, His good, pleasing and perfect will is simply a heart that trusts Him fully.

So THEN, the surrendered life is the only life that brings God’s will into focus for us, because the surrendered life IS God’s will for us.

Conformed or Transformed -pt.4

[A series of thoughts on Romans 12:1-2]

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Romans 12:2

In a speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations on September 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy said this, “Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” I don’t know all of the issues or threats he was facing that motivated him to say these words but I doubt that he had in mind Romans 12:2, “Do not CONFORM any longer to the pattern of this world…” Yet there is a poignant truth to Kennedy’s words when it comes to those things that threaten to restrict and restrain us from becoming all that God wants us to be.

When we conform to something we give to it the freedom to shape us according to its will and value system. In essence we are formed “with” it (con = with; con-form is to be formed with something). It is a choice we make. Paul says, “Do not conform any longer”. The implication is that we should stop doing this. It’s up to us. We have a choice. There is nothing being forced upon us.

Now, that is not to say that there are not powers around us that are trying to draw us in to their particular view of life. There are indeed such forces all around us. Political views, social perspectives, moral values. We are daily inundated with messages that are trying to shape us and form us to be something that we were not created to be. It is the value system of this world. Paul calls it the “pattern” of this world. Pattern implies design and shape and purpose. The pattern of this world calls to us to become a part of it. To weave ourselves into its design in such a way that it’s hard to tell where “me” ends and the “pattern of this world” begins.

I love how J.B. Phillips translates this verse, “Don’t let the world squeeze you into its mold.” How often do we do this? How often do we allow our own convictions to be shaped more by fluctuating social values than by the fixed truth of God’s Word? Conformity to the pattern of this world is indeed the “jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” We cannot be free while being bound to the way of thinking this world calls us to. We cannot grow and become all that God has created us to be if we have planted ourselves in the soil of this worlds values.

So what is the alternative to being conformed to the pattern of this world? Eugene Peterson tells us clearly in his translation of this verse in The Message. “Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it WITHOUT EVEN THINKING.” We cannot keep from being conformed to the pattern of this world if we are not thinking clearly, if our minds are not focused on something beyond this world. We must be “transformed by the renewing of our minds”.

There is a natural pull of our minds into the pattern of this world. We must “renew” our minds, train our minds, to think differently. We cannot do this if we continue to look to the world and it’s prophets to tell us how to think. We must raise our minds above all of this to something else. The way of renewed thinking lies in where our minds are focused. “Set your minds on things above, NOT on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:2)

If we take our cues from this world then we will inevitably be conformed to it. But if our minds are focused intently on God and His Word then a transformation takes place in us and we begin to be shaped by the eternal values of God’s truth rather than by the ever-changing values of this world.

Conformed or transformed? Shaped by this world or shaped by God’s Word? Both are choices we make. They each lead in opposite directions: One toward bondage and stagnation, the other toward freedom and growth. Doesn’t sound like much of a choice to me.