And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
– Romans 12:2
I don’t believe that what I am about to say deserves a “trigger warning.” Nevertheless, I admit that the following statement will sound judgmental. Day after day, I see people do things that I never thought I would ever see. I hear people say things that I never thought I would hear. The fact that we are inundated daily with news, privately created videos, and other social content only compounds this reality. And the thing I find truly sad about all this is that the aforementioned behaviors are not outliers, but have become normative. Almost daily I notice something that leaves me scratching my head in befuddlement. At the risk of being hyperbolic, I sometimes wonder if we as humanity have collectively lost our minds.
I told you it would sound judgmental—but I bet some of you are nodding in agreement.
Biblically speaking, the world has lost its mind. To state it more accurately, the Bible contends that the world has a “mind” that is in contradiction with the mind of Christ. Many times in the New Testament we will notice the phrase “the world” meaning a system of thought and values that stand in contrast with the thinking and values of God’s Kingdom. If you and I take no action to otherwise train our minds, the world will shape us according to its own way of thinking and acting. When we find ourselves astonished at the behavior of some in our society, we are only seeing the ongoing result of “the world” propagating itself.
God wants something different for his people. He wants us to be conformed, but not to the way of the world. Rather, God’s plan for his people is that we become conformed to the image of Christ (Romans 8:29). Because we come into life not conformed to Christ’s image because of sin, such a conformation requires transformation. All of the prewiring of my thought process has to be rewired. Every way I have been shaped by the world must be demolished and reshaped, as a potter refashions clay (see Jeremiah 18:4). Fortunately this is not a blind work for us. We have help to know what this transformation needs to resemble. In scripture we have four individual accounts of Jesus’ life, plus numerous inspired letters by apostles that describe how a holy life is defined. In short, the Bible tells us what the transformed life looks like.
Here’s the kicker: you and I are not passive subjects in the transformational process. We have a role, and it is crucial. Simply put, we must be discerning about what we consume. What media is given the most air time in your day? Who are the voices that you permit into your life? On what topics does your mind tend to dwell, and what influences are shaping your thought on those topics? The answers to these questions matter. Every day something is happening in our mind. We are either being conformed to the thinking of the world, or transformed by a renewal of the mind by the work of the Holy Spirit. I doubt there are any days that are truly neutral; it is either conformation or transformation.
What will be your choices today?
See you along the Winding Path.
