Trusting and Transformation

Romans 12:2:  And do not be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Conforming to the world starts happening the moment we are born.  The family rules are about conforming to that world.  That has its importance.  We go to school and learn to conform to another set of rules.  That has its importance, too.  Along the way, we are also learning to conform, giving up our identity while fulfilling the expectations of others.  Slowly, our identity becomes the family, the church, the school, the job, etc.  None of which is the truth.  The truth of our identity is who we are in Christ.  We are secure in Christ.  We are significant in Christ.  We are safe in Christ. 

If we are extremely fortunate on our journey of transformation, we have a time in the wilderness where everything we thought we knew falls at our feet.  We realize it is all lies, and these are not serving us well anymore.  I say “if we are fortunate” we have a time in the wilderness.  Although it is a place of transformation, it is not easy.  You can only understand your fortune in this if you recognize the call of God to come out of the father’s house.  He wants to create in us His original intent.  That which helped us survive in our different tribes (family, social, spiritual, professional, etc.), eventually becomes that which will take our lives. 

What do you do when you are no longer who you used to be?  What do you do when you no longer believe what you used to believe about yourself, others, God, and life.  What answer do you give yourself to the question: Who am I and what do I want to be when I grow up?  Transformation does not happen overnight…it is the work of a lifetime.  That is good news.  Wherever we are on the journey is where we are meant to be.  Transformation is by the renewing of your mind.  This means our belief system. 

What you believe about yourself in relationship to all your tribes will show by all the relationship issues you have.  We demand of each other that we be that which makes us individually happy and comfortable.  Translated: God put you here to make me happy.  This is why Jesus said that if you love anyone more than you love Him, we are not worthy of the kingdom.  That is pretty strong, and we see the importance of breaking down these places of idolatry.

Renewing the mind is partnered with proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.  The transformation journey is a proving of all God’s truths.  At some point, we will hear the call to come out of the father’s house.  We can have all sorts of feelings about this…guilt, anger, remorse, fear.  We can come up against all sorts of subconscious beliefs that we do not even know are there.  One big one is: If I do not change, then they will be happy; or if I do change, they will be happy.  People pleasing is a huge place of idolatry.  I personally like to think of that good and acceptable and perfect will of God as what we become as part of this transformation journey. Romans 8:29 reminds us that we are predestined (our creation parameters, God’s original intent) to be conformed to the image of His Son. 

Entering into the transformation journey is often like the children of Israel being led out of the land of Egypt.  They had become comfortable there and did not really want to go.  The kingdom literally was being destroyed by plaques.  They still preferred that which they knew to that which was unknown.  Even their forty years in the wilderness did not really change this.  They died in that wilderness.  A new generation that had not known Egypt went into the promise land.  There are some real lessons here for us.  The journey of transformation means that the mind must be renewed (changed beliefs).  It is the truth that sets us free, but often we call that which we do not understand dumb, stupid, or evil.  Like Israel, we do not want to go there.  We must replace fear-based living with faith-based renewal of the mind.  As did Israel, we must enter into acceptance of the Passover Lamb.  Like Abraham who went out not knowing where he was going, so is the journey of transformation for us.