Reflection
Do not conform to the pattern of this world,
but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Romans 12;1-2
Paul does not define worship in terms of rituals or ceremonies performed by Christians when assembled together, and therefore segregated from routine life.True worship is offered through the believer’s daily life by means of a noble ethos practiced openly in the world. God’s will is accomplished through that which is seemingly profane, and with such God is well pleased. Romans 12:1 illustrates Paul’s inclination to decentralize religion, specifically the Christian’s life of service to God, removing the holy presence from a stone temple and placing it within each believer, and within all believers as a community of faith and the true temple of God. True worship amounts to an approach to mundane activities that gives evidence of an inner conversion and transformation by the living presence of Christ. This to Paul was the appropriate response to divine grace, and the only sensible, beneficial, and proper means of honoring God. Paul was convinced, from his understanding of the teaching of Jesus, that God cannot be patronized by human lip-service. Rather, God is served by noble and exemplary living motives, attitudes, perspectives, choices, and actions that demonstrate divine love and goodness in the world.
Commentary by Lesley F. Massey
Prayer
May I be transformed and renewed.
Action
How can our lives witness more honestly to the belief system we profess? What does it mean in our time not to be “conformed to the pattern of the world”? How do you need to adjust your own pattern of life?
Suggested Reading
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:1-2
A person speaks with everything he is and what he does. We are always in communication. We all live by communicating and we are constantly poised between truth and falsehood.
Pope Francis
It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.
Francis of Assisi
We always become what we behold; the presence that we practice matters.
Richard Rohr
Don’t worry about wearing the sign; be the sign. You don’t have to wear a sandwich board saying, “I am religious and spiritual and know what you should do.” You do have to be the best of the mystical presence that your tradition brings. Certainly in Christianity, that means that you begin to go through life putting on the mind of Jesus, trying to see the world as Jesus saw the world.
Joan Chittister
Aspire not to have more, but to be more.
Oscar Romero
To call yourself a child of God is one thing. To be called a child of God by those who watch your life is another thing altogether.
Max Lucado
Every day you are witnessing. What are you witnessing to? Your witness is the total package of your attitudes, character, and actions. It does not lie.
Winkie Pratne