TRANSFORMED BY THE WORD

Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren,by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and perfect, will of God.

I always wondered when one is born again (2 Cor 5:17), we still need to watch ourselves and to live a life that is holy before God. Regardless of the new nature we received at the new birth we still need to buffet our bodies (1 Cor 9:27) and gird up the loins of our mind and be sober (1 Peter 1:13)until I was taught that man is a spirit who has a soul and lives in a body. (1 Thess 5:23. Paul nails it all in Romans 12 by prescribing the remedy.

We are to offer our bodies as living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God and have our mind (soul) renewed. I love this part - Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind - this life that we have now is contrary to the pattern of this world. To be conformed means to be fashioned, to be styled, to go according to and also to be adapted. My dad, Dr Goodwill Shana has a message called breaking the mould where he talked about defying the frame/make up/ status quo, it blessed my heart. As long as we wage war or order our life according to the pattern of this world we fail and are weak as Christ-like beings.

Be ye transformed, (remember our spirit man is made anew at the new birth but the soul and the body still have the old nature)- transformation is metarmorphosis, this is the process of change from an immature form to an adult form or a change in form /nature. You remember Peter alluding to the fact that as newborn babies we need to desire the sincere milk of the word that we may grow thereby (1 Pet 2:2)and Paul said he could not speak to them as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ(1 Cor 3:1); think about tranformation in that regard, a change of nature / form but also growth from immaturity to adulthood.

I look at it like the same process that happened to the inward man (spirit man) has to be followed by a similar process of the soul which will cause the body to be easily subdued or dominated by the spirit man. The more ypu renew your mind the more your spirit man dominates and the more easily you can put your body under.

By the renewal of your mind - The Word of God is the one that renews our mind. (James 1:21 Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls.)The Word renews. It gives us the pattern of God, the way of the new life, it gives a God-like disposition. The more you look in the word of God, the more your disposition is enclined to that of God. A disposition is a person's inherent qualities of mind and character, an inclination or tendency. OXFORD Dictionary says its the action or result of arranging things in a particular way.

That ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. The disposition to view things in the God way.


TO BE CONTINUED