Why?

I think the favorite word of a soon-to-be three year old is “why?”  It doesn’t matter what the answer may be to the question he asks, it’s going to get the response of “why?”  It’s enough to about drive you crazy. I think that’s why God makes little kids so cute; it helps keep them alive!

So we found out “what” God wants from us as Christians in the first verse of Romans chapter 12: total, all-in surrender. Verse two gives us the “how” and the “why”.  We saw yesterday that we, as Christians, are commanded to surrender our bodies as a living sacrifice to God as our act of worship because of what He has done for us through Jesus Christ.

That’s great, but “how” do we go about doing that so that we can worship God with our sacrifice?  Paul says we surrender our bodies to God by no longer conforming to this world. The word “conform” means to be poured into a mold of something and take on its outward appearance. We have to stop acting like the rest of the world and start acting like Jesus. Whatever we put into our hearts and minds will be what we live out in our lives. If we put in the things of this world, we live out the things of this world. If we put in God’s Word, we live out God’s Word.

Not conforming to this world system is a battle, one that changes over time as we mature. There will be failures, but God’s desire for us is to continue rejecting this world. Reject it in the way it tells us our marriage and family should be, reject it in how it says we should work, and reject the world and how it tells us we should do church.

We also have to be “transformed” in the things we put in our minds. This transformation happens from the inside out. A metamorphosis has to take place. That word “transformed” is the same word used to describe the change that happened to Christ on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Now that we know “what” God wants us to do and “how” He wants us to do it, the second part of verse two tells us the “why”: so we can “discern the good, acceptable and perfect will of God”.

Imagine what the Christian life would be like if we break free from the performance-oriented life based upon “doing” things. We are saved by grace, but then we change it to works after salvation. What if we just kept living this Christian life under God’s grace?

Have a great day and God bless.