I use a couple of online Bibles as I study and write. I find these invaluable when searching for a verse or researching a topic. Plus, I copy and paste without misspelling any words! Super helpful for one whose fingers get lost on the keyboard.

But I notice that one of the sites I like comes with ads. I ignore them as most of us have learned to do. Like billboards along a highway, internet ads form the background of our lives. But each one vies for my attention, hoping to conform me to a habit of consuming their product.

Indeed, much of this world sets out to remake my image, to capture my attention, to colonize my thinking. Our culture is good at enticing and wooing. It’s easy to fall in line and trust the prevailing narratives.

But God offers a radically different path. Paul wrote: 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.

Transformation differs completely from conformity. As God works through his Word and his Holy Spirit, my mind awakens. Revitalized as it tunes with the Lord’s perspective, this modification shifts my intellect towards fresh powers of reasoning. Instead of allowing my outer shell—my looks, my body, my speech, my thoughts—to slide with prevailing philosophies, God remolds me. Conformity is a costume. Transformation is radical heart surgery.

How do we enter this path of transformation? Paul gives a clear answer, and in it lies a problem: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.

Transformation requires we turn over all our being. The Lord asks for you and me to give ourselves up, to willingly follow him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. It’s really simple and really scary. The Lord wants everything we have and everything we are.

In the meantime, the world squeezes and shapes. Only by presenting myself to the Lord might I begin to navigate with his guidance. Filled with God’s Spirit I learn to discern with greater clarity and insight. More often than not I avoid the broken and profane and enjoy the goodness found in the Lord. It’s challenging yet real. Transformation overwhelms conformity, if I allow the Lord’s way in my life.

Romans 12:1-2

Photo by Jamie Ginsberg