MUSINGS

“BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD”—This is Paul’s word in Romans 12: 2, and we need to let it have its full weight with us. It bears on every part of our lives. It is a reproach to a christian to be indistinguishable from a worldly person. As the Lord says in John 17: 11, we are “in the world”, but we no more belong to it than Christ did. He says, “They are not of the world, as I am not of the world”. Let us therefore not take on its colour, its habits, its manners, its amusements. Again, the Lord says in John 14: 19, “If ye were of the world, the world would love its own”. How sad it is if the world begins to look upon us as “its own”, going along in its course.

But there is a triumphantly positive side. Far from being conformed to this world, we are, says Paul, to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. God is now before us. It means that we are in the path in which Jesus walked when here. He lived wholly in the Father’s will, delighting in it. What a privilege to walk here “as he walked” (1 John 2: 6). He the object of our renewed minds so that, by the Holy Spirit, we are transformed and take on something of Christ’s character as attached to Him, the centre of another world. So we are to take on heavenly colour and character as our minds are happily subject to the will of God, proving how good that will is as our lives are increasingly controlled by it.

FCM