Read: Romans 12:2

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Reflect:

Years ago, Apple computer ran an advertising campaign built around the idea that it is okay to “Think Different.” A friend of mine framed several of the pictures from the ad campaign and hung them on the wall in her office as an inspiration to her patients.

While the people at Apple and the world, in general, would be pleased to applaud for the “outside of the box” thinking of someone like Gandhi, what would they say about you if you decide to refuse to be molded by the culture and experience true spirituality according to Jesus?

I don’t read the Message Bible on a regular basis, but I like the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases Paul’s words into our 21st-century culture –

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”

So the challenge for the Christian is to not be well-adjusted, at least in terms of what others may think.

Respond:

We will explore this further next week, but once we’ve made a decision to surrender completely to God, what does it mean in my daily life? Verse two begins by encouraging us to “not be conformed to this world.”

We need to “think different” and, more importantly, be different.

How will you be different?