Sunday #3 in Romans 12. A beautiful teaching. The rare word for metamorphosis, the exciting concept of renewal, and knowing the will of God. Unfortunately, many people have carried burdens of misunderstanding of the will of God that have done more crippling than leading.
I think the idea that there is the straight path that we must find unswervingly is unhelpful. I remember in my hopes for a wife, I tried on a lot of personalities through dating, when some of my friends had written the name of their future wife that God had told them in envelopes. I think we find God's will through moving in the direction of faith.
The word perfect means complete or mature, not perfect in the sense of being without any error. A preacher loves Oceans, and he gets contacted by a church in Pensacola FL and Cinncinnati OH. Should he doubt that God would actually give him his desire of an oceanfront ministry?
I don't think this has anything to do with where we live but with using our gifts, and growing in our faith through living kingdom heart and kingdom values. Its not about hoping that all our life will be blessed but by determining that we will be a blessing throughout our lives. And any preacher who says there are all blessings and no trials is trying to fill a stadium. Scripture says we will suffer for doing the will of God on occasion.
2 comments:
Hi Don,
I love the way the MSG translates Rom 12:
1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.
Andre
Andre,
I hold you and your wife in the highest regard, having been so blessed by your thoughts and theology.
Don
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