DaySpring Daily Word of Inspiration: Romans 12:2 – Do not conform 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.

There is a poignant and powerful underlying meaning that if we just stayed on the surface, we’d miss. As we can comprehend from normal context clues, the scripture would have us be different; renewed in our minds to be able to see that God’s will is good for us. What we may miss is that if we live this life as everyone else does-carefree and not concerned about God or his work, we will never be able to experience God’s will in our lives to see its effects.

This is powerful simply because if we think or believe that God’s will affects our lives only if we sometimes do what he wants or desires for us, then our relationship is bound to be incomplete and there will be no true recognition for his power in our lives. How can you approve anything in your life if you’ve never tested it? You don’t go out on a limb for a stranger if they ask you to lie to the cops when they come around asking about them! You don’t take a person off of the street to walk into a bar fight with you! You don’t move into an area on the advice of someone you don’t know. And you certainly don’t send you kids to a school you know nothing about! (Christian or not, prayerfully you don’t do any of these things but for sake of my example – stay with me) NO! You can’t trust any of these things until they prove accurate and true. You check (test) everything! You do recon, you investigate, you ask questions, you get various input from multiple sources. You shift your focus to make sure you’re getting a desired outcome. Well this is the same thing that this passage is referring to.

When we want to see if God is real in our lives and that his word is true, we have to give it our focus! We have to put our all into it and just as in the previous scenarios, we will get strengthened in the knowledge we gain from our investigations. We have to shift our minds to be unlike that which we’ve known. We can’t think about things how we would like to or how we grew up, we have to renew our minds to get into the mode of being a parent, a moral person, a peacemaker, a protector; and so we have to renew our minds if we want to get into the mode of being a true disciple of Christ. This is how we are able to test and approve of his will. We have to think like him, walk like him, talk like him, love like him, and be like him – dedicated to see his desired outcome in our lives. How else will you know his will for you is good, pleasing or perfect if you don’t test it out for yourself?

The renewing of our minds is more than just a wishful thought, it is the gateway to seeing a person transformed into the person God would have them to be through the knowledge of the gospel (emptying out that which we knew and replacing it with that which he needs us to know). As based on our examples above, they transform someone from being a person with no direction into a person with true tested, quality information that they can stand on. What has a renewed mind from Christ done in your life? Has it proven God’s word is true? Have you made the commitment to be dedicated to finding out?

We pray that you are eager to see how good, pleasing and perfect God’s will is for your life. Many think his will is good because of what you have but I submit to you today, it should be good because of what you now know about him since you allowed him to reshape, restore and renew your mind in him. Where is your mind today? It can be on the world’s stuff or on God’s stuff. We’ve done the world thing long enough, let’s refocus now and renew our minds to be focused on God’s stuff. In that, we will experience that his will passes the test and should be approved in our lives. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!