Home » Thoughts for the Week » You can’t blend in if you were born to stand out (11 November)

You can’t blend in if you were born to stand out (11 November)

The thought this week was written by Graeme Ross, EBA Regional Minister

As we have entered into this second lockdown, I have been really challenged through reading Romans 12.1-2:

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. 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.

Remembering should change us

Often when Christians talk about serving Jesus as Lord, the emphasis is placed on us trying harder but in contrast to this, Paul says that we should remember God’s mercy. When we dwell on and grasp more of God’s love and of the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we are left with only one appropriate response which is for us to devote our lives to Jesus.

In this time of lockdown when all sorts of things are crowding into our thoughts, will we make time and space to remember and to reflect upon God’s mercy

Offer your bodies as living sacrifices

We are called to offer the whole of our lives in a sacrificial way, giving God our best and not just what we have left over at the end of the week. We are called to serve God with the whole of our lives and not just in church services on Sundays and we can do this by offering Him our personalities, skills, gifts, time, relationships and money. We can do so in the knowledge that God will use what we have and that he will work in, through, around and sometimes in spite of us.

How do we respond to the commands of God to love him wholeheartedly, to love our neighbour as ourselves and to express these things as we seek to make disciples? Are these areas our primary focus or things we give some thought in our spare time? Following some Zoom discussions in the spring, we produced a summary of what we felt that God was saying to us and I was challenged recently when someone reminded me about this document. If we believe that God spoke to us so clearly, then how can those five areas not be prominent in our thinking just four months later?

Am I offering my whole life as a living sacrifice or am I just expecting Jesus to bless me and my plans? Do I relate to Jesus as his servant or as a customer?

True and proper worship

The offering of the whole of our lives is the worship that God primarily wants. I sympathise with the desire of many Christians to return to worshipping together in person as soon as we are allowed but I get the sense that for some the drivenness that is there to get back into buildings to worship is linked to a misunderstanding about what worship is. If we think that God values our services more than our service for him then we are mistaken! When we come out of lockdown and are allowed to meet together, I hope and pray that the issue of whether people choose to return to a building or not is not one on which we judge others. Our Theology of worship means that we can honour God even if we don’t meet physically but at the same time it is unfortunate if some Christians judge others who return to worship in buildings in a Covid secure way when this is legally allowed. May we continue to grow in our love for each other even when we hold different views.

When you think of worship do you immediately think of a church service or whole life discipleship?

Don’t conform to the pattern of this world

The film Wonder is truly wonderful!  The story centres around 10 year old Auggie who has Treacher Collins syndrome which is a condition that affects the development of bones and other tissues of the face. At the start of the film Auggie is about to experience his first day at school having previously been home schooled, he is incredibly anxious about this because he knows that he looks different and he is desperate to fit in. There is a wonderful moment at the school gate where his sister says to him ‘You can’t blend in when you were born to standout’. For me, these words can be taken as God speaking to us, as people we long to fit in but God is calling us to stand out and to shine for him.

In what ways do we try to fit in when we should be standing out?

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind

We have a choice! Are we willing to place ourselves in the hands of God the potter and to invite him to shape us? As churches, we have been forced to do things in different ways over these past few months. Are we open to Jesus changing the way that we think and do things or is it our hope that things can go back to things being exactly the way they were as soon as possible?

As Baptists we often talk about discerning the mind of Christ. Are we willing to have our minds changed where necessary so that our thinking is more like His?

Video resource

Later this week, I’ll be sharing more about what I think these verses are saying in a sermon which you will be able to find on our YouTube channel. As with all the videos on our channel, you can use them without permission but it is always encouraging to hear how resources we are producing are being used.

May we continue to remember and respond to God’s mercy.