Praying for a Year of Renewal

Some of the original readers of Romans would likely have been shocked when they heard Paul say “present your bodies” to God. (Romans 12:1,2) Much Greek philosophy saw the “body” as an encumbrance, not something you would offer to God.

But Paul’s blunt language is a forceful reminder to one and all that the worship of God is not some abstract, inward, perhaps even mystical feeling. In worship, believers are so bold as to offer their very bodies to God as a living sacrifice (a bit of any oxymoron itself!). 

On the one hand, Romans reminds us that in Christ, we are able to negatively put to death the deeds of the flesh, but positively present our very bodies to God in worship of Him as Creator.  The metaphor of “giving our hearts to God” probably succeeds in speaking to the motive of our worship, but fails in terms of our understanding that we give our whole body to God, not just a part.

Such a gift requires that we make the hard decisions about life – we choose to be transformed rather than to allow conformity to the world to become the paradigm for who we are. Conforming to the world and being transformed are incompatible goals. Believers must choose one or the other. The distinction between the two is just as stark as John’s light versus darkness or love versus hate. One thinks of the impossibility of mixing oil and water in this sense.

Paul’s verb for “be transformed” is the same verb Matthew and Mark use to describe the transfiguration of Jesus. They are clear in telling us that a complete change came over Jesus in ways that were beyond understanding. Perhaps that is the image for us to think about as we seek to be women and men whose faith in Christ leads to transformation. At stake is a fundamental change of character and behavior. It speaks to making the right choice between conforming to the world or being transformed.

The means of such transformation is “the renewing of our minds.” A renewed mind is one that, to use Paul’s Philippians 2 language, learns to “think like Jesus thought.” It is a mind in which “the word of Christ dwells richly” (Colossians 3:16) and one in which “the implanted word” (James 1:21) is present. It is a mind in which the Spirit of God directs our paths (Romans 8) – perhaps the very mind God gave to the first humans in Genesis 2.

At the beginning of a new year, few reminders in Scripture are more appropriate than that of Romans 12:1,2. My prayer is that in my own life, I will become less and less like the world and more and more like the kind of body I’m comfortable offering to God as a living sacrifice. 

Happy New Year!

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