…but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:2, NIV)
Yesterday we recognized that the world would have its way with us. It disturbances and distractions and outright temptations appeal to our sin nature, our flesh.
So rather than watch in prayer, we watch another episode.
Rather than serve a friend, we serve up another portion.
Rather than “be still,” we hope desperately that after today’s relentless schedule we will tomorrow simply “still be.”
And yet, we live here. We are, as Alistair Begg put it, a boat in the water. The question is, how do we keep the water from capsizing the boat? In a time much slower than our own, Charles Spurgeon, the 19th century’s clarion voice, wrote: “O professor (of the faith), too little separated from sinners, you know not what you lose by conformity to the world. It cuts the tendons of your strength, and makes you creep where you ought to run. Then, for your own comfort’s sake, and for the sake of your growth in grace, if you be a Christian, be a Christian, and be a marked and distinctive one.”
But how do we get here—to this place of distinction? We cannot stand out as one marked by Christ if we walk only with those also so-marked. We must indeed put our boat in the water. We must walk the sidewalks of the city and ride the suburbs-bound trains.
The answer lies, as Paul wrote to the Romans, in a transformed mind. “Do not conform…but be transformed.” Our distinction comes when we fix our minds on our Savior and on the pages that tell us of his works and his ways.
Golf teachers speak of muscle memory, that trained connection between mind and matter, whereby our practice produces a repetition that returns in the moment on the golf course. The shot we’ve hit a hundred times on the practice field is the shot we can hit once when it presents itself during our competitive round.
So it is with the training of our mind. We are preparing ourselves for challenge, for those times when our faith is not cocooned in the embrace of fellow believers. Be reading, by meditation, by memorization, by prayer, by listening to Bible-rich preaching—in all these ways our mind is transformed, retrained for new living in an old world.
If, as Spurgeon noted, conformity to the world leads to loss, then transformation by and into the Spirit of God leads to victory. It is the way we win against the tide.
—
Jeff Hopper
October 18, 2012
Copyright 2012 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.