Pursuing Your Destiny Part 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. (Romans 12:2, ESV)

In considering our destiny as defined by Paul in Romans 8:29: For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son . . . ., some basic steps precede the actual pursuit. If we don’t get the first steps “right,” we’ll never live out the pursuit in ways that make us living icons of Jesus.

Romans 12:2 help us see some of those first steps we take after the big step of becoming  followers of Jesus through faith in his death, burial, and resurrection. The teaching in this verse involves two steps—one we take and one we receive. One step is a rejection; the other is an embracing. The one is a rejection of our false self, the one broken and distorted by the fall. The other is choosing to become our true self, redeemed and restored by the ongoing work of God in our lives.

The Apostle instructs us to resist the world system that would press us into its mold. We’ve all experienced that pressure; a pressure to buy into all that the visible world offers us. We’re told we’ll be happy, content, and fulfilled as we pursue pleasure, wealth, health, and the next “you can’t live without it” thing that comes along.

In this world that wants to pressure us to conform, truth is what you make it. Your truth is no better than your neighbor’s truth. Your choices are just that, yours. Your neighbor’s may be different, but it doesn’t matter since this world we’re to resist espouses the “live and let live” mantra at the expense of real truth.  The world system has only one absolute, and that is that there aren’t any absolutes.

Resisting isn’t easy. While it may seem trite, it’s still true that it is easier to go with the flow than it is to swim upstream. Choosing to resist conforming to the world around us means we’ll always swim upstream. Resisting is harder than conforming, and we’d best not forget that. That resisting may be part of what Jesus had in mind when he tells his followers to “take up your cross.”

Pursuing our destiny—becoming living icons of Jesus—is also the pursuit of our true self. My spiritual director put it in perspective when he said to me, “John, you have to decide whether you want to live as John of the Flesh or as John of God.” Yielding to the pressures of the world will assure that I live as John of the Flesh. Since that isn’t my destiny, I must pay attention to the second part of Paul’s teaching in Romans 12:2.

While I choose to reject the world (a system of thought that opposes all that God teaches in his Word), I embrace God’s transforming work in my life. It’s a work that will make me John of God. It’s a work that will make me a living icon of Jesus, conforming me to his image. It’s a work I don’t do; I allow God to do it in me by yielding to him and the work of his Spirit. As I yield to that work, Paul tells me that I will experience a renewed mind. I’ll begin to think as God wants me to think. I’ll quit thinking as the world wants me to think. John of God will think differently than John of the Flesh.

So, before we think about particular practices that will change our minds and our lives, conforming us to the image of God’s Son, we have some steps to take, beginning steps on the journey toward our destiny. We choose to resist this world system that is the enemy of God and the enemy of our souls. The primary way we resist is by embracing God’s transforming work that will renew our minds. We decide we no longer want to be (insert your name) of the Flesh. Rather, we want to be (insert your name) of God. That choice is the next big step toward pursuing our destiny.  Taking these steps lead us to the practices.  If we don’t take them, the practices won’t make any difference. – Pastor Strain will be blogging for Freedom Fighter each Wednesday. He has recently retired from the First Baptist Toms River

Daily Bible Reading: 2 Kings 1-3; Matthew 12:1-23

Quote of the day: Nothing but fire kindles fire. To know in one’s whole nature what it is to live by Christ; to be His, not our own; to be so occupied with gratitude for what He did for us and for what He continually is to us that His will and His glory shall be the sole desires of our life…that is the first necessity of the preacher. Phillips Brooks

Bible Memory: “I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts. I hold back my feet from every evil way, in order to keep your word.” Psalm 119:100-101