Friday August 31, 2018

 

When we were children, our tendency was to resist our parents; we just did not think alike. Boys could not understand why their parents wanted them to bathe every day and little girls could not understand why they could not have a boyfriend. Because of our resistance, our parents found it necessary to repeat the same things over and over again. Our typical response to this was: but why? And our parents out of utter frustration would answer, “Because I said so”! Now that we are grown up and are parents, we too find ourselves telling our boys that they need to bathe every day and our little girls that they are too young to fall in love. Just like our parents, we find ourselves repeating things over and over again.

 

 

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 12:2 NIV

 

As children of God, we have a tendency to resist Him too, because we do not think alike. More than likely, your first reaction is to say, “I do not resist God”. However, in all truthfulness, we all do. Some resist Him in their marriage. They know what God wants them to do as wife or husband, yet they resist Him. Others resist God in the way they handle their finances, time, or priorities; and so we find ourselves like little children, thinking that in one area or another, what God wants us to do does not make sense. However, now that we are all grown up we just can’t ask: but why? Therefore, we choose instead to resist God’s will and we continue doing things as we see fit.

 

The problem is that God created the system and only He knows how it works. What is fascinating is that God’s laws were created for our benefit. When we apply His laws for marriage, our families benefit, and when we practice His laws for finances, we become beneficiaries. Since we have the problem that we do not think like God does, He wants us to allow Him to transform our lives through the renewing of our minds. If we could see our marriages, children, our time, money, and the entirety of our lives from His perspective, we will begin to act differently.

 

Allowing God to renew our minds leads to a transformed life, and a transformed life evaporates our resistance to God. Because, when we see as God sees, then we will act like Jesus; and when we think like God thinks, then we will live as Jesus lived.