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.