"Total Transformation"

you is important.
And every body part plays its role in the body’s total health.”

If one part fails, the entire body suffers.

What part are you?

Are you performing your task?

Some of the things that Paul lists in Romans Chapter 12 include serving, teaching, encouraging, helping others, financial giving, showing mercy…

…and obviously this is not an exhaustive list.

It could go on and on and on!!!

Are you doing what God is calling you to do?

There really is no such thing as Scriptural Christianity outside the realms of the Church.

That means, that Christianity happens within the congregation…

…working together, living with, and worshiping with other Christians.

That doesn’t mean that Christianity only happens on Sunday morning, but it does mean that it happens in relationship with Christ and other people.

“Present your bodies to God,” Paul says.

And what Paul means by that is present your entire lives to God!!!

Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the instrument through which the Holy Spirit works.

And on a larger scale, the Body of Christ is the Ultimate instrument through which the Holy Spirit works!

“So,” Paul says, “take your body; take everything you are and everything you do…

…take all the tasks that you have to do every day; take your work at the office or the factory; take your work at school or at home and offer all that as an act of worship to God.”

Real worship is offering every moment of every day to God!

We might say, “I am going to church to worship God,” and that is good and right.

We should also be able to say, “I am going to the factory, the office, the garage, the garden, the school to worship God!!!”

And this requires a radical change!!!

We must not be conformed to the world, but transformed from it!!!

With Christ in our lives we are new people, new creations; our minds are becoming different because the mind of Christ is in us!!!

And the mind of Christ is the mind of a compassionate and humble Servant Who has come to preach Good News to the poor and set the captives free!

It is the mind which befriends the homeless, the beggar, the outcaste, the marginalized, the lost, the lonely.

It is the mind which treats all people equally.

In 1 Corinthians Chapter 2 Paul talks about so-called “worldly wisdom” versus “godly wisdom.”

And he quotes the prophet Isaiah with this wonderful promise, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him”…

…but then he goes on: “but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit,” and he finishes out the chapter by saying “we have the mind of Christ.”

Yes, fellow members of the Body of Christ, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

And how can we do that…

…how could we even dream of being able to do that outside the community of faith, outside the study of God’s Word, outside of relationship with God and neighbor?

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