Conformed versus Transformed by Ps Jim Jung

We are incredibly complex beings. Some more complex than others! But God didn’t make us to be clones or replicas. He made each one of us to be unique, with a divinely ingrained purpose. You may bear a close resemblance to your parents, you may have features or speech patterns that define what part of the world you were born, you may even be a twin – but I want you to recognise today that God offers to you a personal deposit of His Spirit which moves you from an impersonal, distant stranger into a close, loving and intimate relationship with God, where calling Him Father becomes normal. Your true identity is found in Christ.

Yet every day we live in tension. Heaven is for real but earth is real also. We are caught between those two realities. The Apostle Paul recognised this tension when he writes:

 “Don’t be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you can figure out what God’s will is—what is good and pleasing and mature.” (Romans 12:2 CEV) And then in another version it says:

 “Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Romans 12:2 NLT)

Conformed versus transformed. That is the ultimate point of tension for which human beings wrestle. So much around us would have us conform to the “accepted norms” of society. To be “contemporary” or “up with the times” is a constant challenge to timeless and irrefutable laws placed into creation by its Creator.

Every day we are bombarded with a subtle barrage of anti-Christian ideology that slowly erodes the values, characteristics and truth which Jesus Christ came to secure. The Apostle Paul tells us not to “…copy the behaviour and customs of this world”. Allowing our biblical beliefs and values to be conformed to the [increasingly corrupt] patterns of this world relegates our identity in Christ to the back pages of our lives. Conforming concedes our Christ life to something far less than He has ordained for us. Jesus calls us to live a transformed life.