Don't adapt to this world

The apostle Paul makes a solemn invitation to all the children of God throughout all generations to live a life of continuous surrender to the Lord in all areas and that is why he speaks of bodies as symbols of the carnal, material, animal part of the human being, those areas that can constitute an instrument for evil and sin.

Our mind can even be part of that process, the mind not touched by God for example, those members, those instruments of our being that he calls the body, somata but that can be greater than simply our physical part we present it to the Lord and let us live a sacrificial life, of continuous death of the old man so that the new man can be resurrected and that this new birth of which the Word speaks can become effective, real, manifest, observable in our lives.

And that by means of that continuum to live our life as a living sacrifice, right? we are alive, we live in the world, we do the normal things of a living human being but we are like a flesh, a body, a victim placed on the sacrificial table that is continually consuming itself under the purifying fire of God and is shedding its attributes merely carnal and animal and acquiring the attributes of a human being immersed in the Word and in the principles of Christ Jesus and His Kingdom

That is why Paul speaks of giving up our bodies in a living, holy sacrifice that is then obviously pleasing to God because the only thing that can please God is a life of holiness, a life of continuous surrender and continuous subjection to the principles of the Kingdom of God. That is why then we can be a holy and pleasing sacrifice to God and Paul adds: which constitutes, that total and continuous surrender to the process of purification and sanctification, is what truly constitutes worship.

That is why we think in the Word of Christ that God seeks those worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth, meaning not only in words or gestures or rhetoric but also effectively in their lives by submitting and paying the price of a holy life that is pleasing to God.

So Paul continues and here we enter a new material in verse 2 elaborating that idea of surrender and life continuously lived before God in continuous purification and adds another element that qualifies it, right? And here then in verse 2 of Romans 12 he says, "Be not conformed to this age."

Paul does not mean century in the sense that we use that word technically: a hundred years. The word he uses in the original Greek is: aion, where does the word come from: age or epoch and it means: a large unit of time, a unit of time characterized by certain attributes and certain traits, right? a time as we speak in the history of art or literature or the intellectual history of humanity, there are times.

There is talk of the century of lights or things like that where it refers to a time that has specific characteristics, right? So Paul says: do not conform to this time, to this time and one may ask: well, what time or what time?

He is evidently referring to the present time we live in, this incarnation of humanity so to speak before Christ comes and establishes His new system. Until Christ comes in His Second Coming we will be in this century, from the creation of the world to this moment is this century and this century means the world with all its vanities, its rebellion against God, its inability to submit to the principles of the Kingdom of God; the world ruled by Satan and his powers, the world with all its sinful attributes, with all its cultural attributes that militate against holiness, against surrender to the Lord, against the life of purity that God wants, against the conscience of eternity and obedience to the commandments of the Lord. In other words, the Christian life lived legitimately.

This world, this century, this time, this age in which we live, this dispensation so to speak in general terms is contrary to the principles of the Kingdom of God and Paul says solemnly: do not conform, do not conform, do not adhere that is, accommodate the attributes and customs and attitudes of this fallen world that is in rebellion against God.

We will leave it there and in our next meditation we will continue but remember that call from the Word of God. The call of God is not to lull you, not to accommodate, not to conform to the customs and attitudes of this world. Christians continually live in contradiction to the values of this world because we obey the values of a different Kingdom, which is the Kingdom of God. May the Lord bless you, until our next meditation.