A radical change

In Romans chapter 12 in verse 2 the Apostle Paul has made a tremendously complex and all-encompassing call to us to a life of transformation, of rejection of the world and of a continual renewal of the mind. And I want in this last meditation connected with verse 2 to do a deeper exploration of that renewal of understanding, what does it really mean in our life to be renewed and renew ourselves in understanding?

It means that we have to have a commitment, a perpetual restructuring of the way we see the world, its values and I would say that even more than that it is supposed that as children of God when we enter the Gospel we can look back , the experiences of the past and adopt a different interpretation of the things that have happened in our lives.

There are many Christians who live captive and victims of the experiences of the past. Perhaps sisters who were sexually abused, young men who were perhaps physically abused by their parents and who suffered domestic violence, people who have had a difficult and suffered life, past failures, betrayals, financial losses so we enter the ways of the Lord many times and we see those experiences from the past and our understanding continues to interpret them in the same way that we did when we were without Christ.

And we do not understand many times that all these things that we went through in our ancient life were part of a total design to bless us in the end as the Word says and that God allows many times that we go through certain processes to deal with us or that we simply In light of the new life we have in Christ Jesus, we can recycle those things from the past, so to speak, and turn them into stepping stones to greater greatness and the personality and character of a true child of God.

Because in the light of the Word, many times the things that seemed to us failures and past abuses can become instruments to reach a greater humility, meekness, patience, the ability to forgive our offenders, a conviction of what the world truly is which then allows us to live more as a child of God, more mercy towards others. There are many ways.

If our understanding of our past experiences can be renewed to see those things in light of God's goodness, in light of God's Power, in light of the fact that God has chosen us for an eternity with Him that can transform our past traumas and then instead of seeing ourselves as victims, mistreated and abused people we can see ourselves as victorious people in Christ Jesus who understand that the afflictions of the past are nothing, Paul says compared to the blessings that await us in the world to come.

So I ask my brothers to transform and renew their way of seeing things from the past but also to renew and have a different understanding of things in the world. Many times we overly appreciated the compliment of a co-worker, the praise of the world, the status symbols of a European car, or a large house or luxurious furniture or love conquests and for many people that is all they live for. To become the CEO of a company for example, for many people that is what constitutes a triumphant and successful life.

When we come to the ways of the Lord we understand that this is nothing, that in reality what constitutes a triumphant man is self-control, love, being used by God for the advancement of the Kingdom of God. These are things, that is, it is a renewal of understanding, we interpret life and the things of life in a different way.

And that brought to mind the words of the apostle Paul in chapter 3 of Philippians beginning in verse 7 Paul who was previously a Pharisee who persecuted Christians and who was involved in this sterile religious dynamic of his merely Hebrew religion that he did not know. of the new life in Christ Jesus but which is then completely transformed and changed by a frontal encounter with the power of Christ on the road to Damascus. Now Paul writes years later as the great apostle Paul who has a different understanding of the world.

In Philippians 3: 7 Paul says: "But whatever things were gain to me I have counted as loss for Christ's sake." How beautiful, Paul says: the things that I thought before: wow what a great triumph, what a great gain now in light of the new understanding that I have through the experiences and revelations that I have received from the Holy Spirit now I understand that they were waste, that they were garbage.

He also says: "And certainly I still estimate" there is the idea that I understand that I interpret as, approach and analyze in this way the idea of understanding "I estimate all things as loss due to the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. " Paul now with that new understanding that we must all aspire to acquire sees that everything that everything that he thought was great, beautiful and beautiful and lasting in the world is garbage.

His rejection of these things is so great, so radical that it is as if it were smelly garbage. By the way I can say that: we can admire a great painting in a museum and we can admire the great works of music and art in the world and we must do so, we must be cultured people who appreciate the creativity that God has placed in the human being but In light of our appreciation and esteem of eternal things, that is, proportionally the contrast must be so great, our attachment to eternal things must be so great that our attachment to material things must be as if they were garbage.

It is simply a mirage, it is a contradiction that is created by means of two very large imbalances that lead us to think that the world is garbage because we go to eternity. Paul says: my attachment to the things of God is so radical that the things of the world are like garbage although I participate in them just in case they redound to the benefit of the Kingdom of God.

That is the change of mind, it is the understanding that sees the world through different lenses. God allow that so you can begin to see your marriage, your fatherhood, your job, your career in the world, the traumas of the past, look at them through the Word of God and you will understand then that they are very different from how you saw them when you were in the world. May the Lord bless you and until our next meditation I say goodbye to you, Pastor Roberto Miranda.