Change
“And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
(Romans 12:1–2 NLT-SE)
I hate change. I am a routine kind of guy. I think I hate admitting this more, but I truly am not good or comfortable with change if I am being completely honest. I want to be flexible, innovative, adventurous and all those other words that we have attached to embracing change, but something in me just prefers the known, the comfortable, the familiar.
I have discovered however, that I am not alone. In fact, my resistance to change makes me human. We prefer to be bodies at rest and according to Newton's 1st law of motion a body rest stays at rest unless a force is imposed on it compelling a change. We all have a level of resistance to change. some of us are just more vocal about objections to change than others.
Change is inevitable. You will change. I will change. We were designed to grow and growth equals change. Constant, regular, deep and wide change is the reality of being human. Growth is change and change is good. Growing means we are healthy.
Conformity or Transformation?
You have a choice in the matter. You can choose to embrace change or have change forced on you. Change that is forced on you is called conformity. Conformity is a change that makes you less of you and more of whatever has pressed itself upon you.
Choosing to following Jesus is choosing life of change.
Choosing change however, is a different kind of change. It is God's way of changing is. It is transformation. Transformation is change that occurs from the inside out. It makes you more of you by allowing God to push you into the shape of who you are. This change occurs when we choose to follow Jesus. To be clear, choosing to following Jesus is choosing life of change, transformational change. The choice is yours.