“Therefore, 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. Do 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.”-Romans 12:1-2
It’s amazing when left to ourselves how quickly we can make anything about us. Have you ever noticed that once we allow just the littlest form of negativity, pride, lust, or selfish behavior creep in that before long it can consume you and shade the truth? You no longer have the lens of Christ in which you see things and act but the lens of yourself or that specific character flaw be it negativity, pride, or lust. When those things creep in Paul challenges us to renew our minds or in another word, RESET.
As a kid I grew up with the original Nintendo system. I can still smell the plastic that system was made of. If you had one you know exactly what smell I’m talking about. And if you had any interaction with one you can remember that over time the picture would get distorted, or fuzzy…Mario and Luigi’s body would be at the bottom of the screen and their legs would be hanging from the top because the cartridge had dust and dirt that had crept in and slowly distorted the picture. It became an interference.
So what would you do? You’d take the cartridge out and blow on the inside of the cartridge and the slot on the system. You would RESET, and start over. It was especially frustrating because once the screen became distorted, you couldn’t tell where the fiery hammers (from the duck or turtles or whatever they are) were coming from to avoid them.
That’s exactly what the enemy wants is for our view of God and life to be distorted so that we can’t see the enemies attacks for what they are and where they are coming from. Paul follows this idea of renewing our minds by challenging us to look outside of ourselves. When you look to change a behavior what do you do…THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING.Romans 12:9-16 “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.”
I don’t know about you but if you are human, sincerity, honoring one another, joy and patience are not things that come real naturally. Our sin nature is one that looks to satisfy self over others. Today I want to invite you to RESET, look for places where negativity, pride, lust, selfishness and deceit have crept in and clean it out. Get rid of it because over time, it becomes increasingly more difficult to battle distortion of the truth in hardened hearts with deep and dark roots of self.
Grace and Peace,
A. Heath
@drewheath
@heathsmusic