You Mean, I Get To Decide?

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

This verse has been used throughout the centuries of the Way, but not always in the right manner or method. A quick glance might give one the impression that I get to decide by experimentation what is the will of God, what is right or wrong. This is the opposite of Paul's point however; for read in its entirety the first part of the verse puts that aside, for what is the world but men and women deciding for themselves what is right and wrong?

You can bet that if I were the judge of what God's will is and what is declared right or wrong then asparagus would be an abomination while pizza would be what is good and acceptable and perfect. You may laugh, but every individual would decide in a similar manner and with similar results. Lawyers and politicians could make their will sound official, writers and advertisers could make their will sound more appealing, and country bumpkins would do the thing with asparagus and pizza, but the entire world would have billions of sets of laws about rights and wrongses.

What Paul has in mind for each of us though is quite different.

First we believe in Jesus so that the transforming of our mind begins with our rebirth in the Spirit. Then we learn as a newborn babe does what is the will of God as we study His word, pray, sit under the discipleship of elders and deacons and ministers of God, come back for more prayer, live with the Lord at hand, and the many other things we do to test and learn what is the will of God and what He has decided is good and acceptable and perfect. Discerning what is the will of God seems to begin with accepting first that I was born wrong and God is always right. Hence the need, as our Lord Jesus told Nicodemus, for that second birth in Christ by the Spirit.

So, I don't get to decide? No, I get to discover what He has decided for me. What a relief! So many people actually like asparagus, I would hate to declare it an abomination.

Love in Christ,

Bucky

P.S. May Day Devotional? No, the world is going down; we need to send a mayday to God.