Creator, Father, King #270

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

ONCE UPON A TIME in America, everyone seemed to live in a nice three-bedroom home on a nice suburban street with a white picket fence. Dad went to work, Mom stayed home, and the kids enjoyed peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches while watching The Howdy Doody Show on their twenty-inch manual-knob, black-and-white TV (ask your grandparents). Everything felt as hunky-dory as a Norman Rockwell painting.

Then came the countercultural revolution in the 1960s.

Tired of conforming to the moral standards of earlier generations, millions of young Americans known as “hippies” embraced all manner of vice, rebelliousness, and individuality. “Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll” became the motto of a decade. Nonconformity in morality, appearance, clothing, employment—or anything, really—became, well, hip.

The hippies of the ’60s certainly would have benefited from today’s verse! Here it is in its larger context:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Let’s dig deeper into this important exhortation.

What’s It Mean?

Using the phrase “living sacrifice,” the apostle Paul draws on the imagery of the Old Testament sacrificial system, with its constant offerings of bulls, goats, lambs, etc. But thanks to Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, no more animal sacrifices are needed (Hebrews 10:1-18) and all believers have become the Temple of God’s Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16-17).

As such, we are to conform—but to a godly standard. Unlike those (including the ’60s hippies) who defiantly seek meaning and pleasure in what the world offers, we are to conform to God’s righteousness, which is life-giving.

To do this, we must “be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2, ESV). This includes filling our hearts with Scripture (Psalm 119:11), praying constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:17), following the Spirit’s leading (Galatians 5:25), and fellowshipping with other believers (Hebrews 10:24-25).

Being countercultural isn’t a bad thing . . . as long as you eschew the tug of the world and are “hip” to God’s standards!

Now What?

Memorize Romans 12:1-2.

Did You Know?

One of the seminal moments of the hippie movement was the 1969 Woodstock music festival in New York state, which was attended by an estimated 400,000 to 500,000 people.