derek-wilder

"Be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2).  It's amazing that such a simple phrase has the power to be the foundation of all personal change.  Lasting transformation from the inside-out absolutely cannot occur without our minds being renewed.  As we learn more about renewing our minds, some become fearful that renewing our minds is some sort of "Mind Game" to be played to better ourselves.  There seems to be a natural tendency to believe that since we are the ones choosing to renew our minds (think something differently), then WE are the ones who are ultimately in control of transforming ourselves.   Nothing could be further from the Truth.  It's not the renewing that sets us free...it's the Truth that sets us free...the renewing simply is the vehicle given to encounter Truth.  Truth is a Person...not a concept and we allow this Person to transform us when we choose to renew.  Ok, let's clarify WHO is doing the transformation with a simple, yet appetizing story.

A while back I went camping with a few of my friends.  After being woke up by an abrupt thundershower and a barking dog we decided it was time to eat.  As you can imagine, a gourmet breakfast was not in the plans.  There was a slab of bacon, some hash browns and a dozen eggs in the cooler, and, oh yes, a large bottle of grease to lube all the food up.  Everyone agreed on scrambled eggs, so I cracked the shells, stirred the eggs into a frenzy and poured them on the hot skillet.   And, believe it or not, within a few minutes this liquid concoction of eggs turned into a solid, fluffy, mass of what most of us thought was (for the most part) edible.  Ok, so here's the question...what transformed the eggs?  Did the skillet cause the transformation? How about the one who placed the skillet on the stove or the one who cracked the eggs?  Obviously, if the eggs weren't cracked, scrambled, placed in the skillet or onto the stove, they would not have been transformed.  BUT, did any of these things cause the transformation?  Absolutely not!  The only stimulus that caused the eggs to be transformed was the heat.  Of course, we couldn't actually see the heat with our eyes but it sure caused those eggs to look very different after just a few minutes.  Of course, some of us sit in front of a hot stove with a dozen eggs and never place the eggs on the heat and gripe about our eggs not being cooked.  This occurs daily when we choose not to renew our minds and then gripe about our lives not being transformed.  However, at no time is there anything humanly possible we can do to cook (or transform) the eggs without HEAT.  The heat has to get the credit because we are absolutely powerless to create the transformation without it. 

This is not a new argument.  A couple thousand years ago Paul was trying to settle the same argument...who gets the credit for people's lives being transformed?  Some people at the church at Corinth wanted to give Paul the credit, others wanted to give Apollos the credit, but Paul emphatically explains away the ridiculous bickering with this statement: "I (Paul) planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.  So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth" (I Corinthians 3:6-7 New American Standard).  I think Paul summed it up pretty well!

Website: www.livestransforming.com

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