Romans 12:2
“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.”
This is likely to be the least liked verse in the New Testament. Why? Well, for the very reason that the American education system, culture, and mainstream churches have all been avowed advocates of irrationality for generations now. To think clearly and logically, according to Biblical standards is the goal and catalyst of Christian life. To be conformed to this world is, in the main, the act of declaring oneself intellectually, philosophically and morally neutral. That is sin’s default condition. The sinner believes he can move about life, thinking about it, assessing it, making decisions, deriving moral evaluations, and determining right from wrong, on the power of his own mind/reason. Where the Scripture tells us to test everything (1 Thessalonians 5:21) – and that by the standard of God’s word – the world suppresses this and pretends that no standard exists. This is the great and pernicious sin: our preposterous insistence that God really doesn’t speak authoritatively over us and, therefore, that ultimate truth can’t be known. To this end, we are unabashed poseurs in life – pretending that all is chance and mystery and that the proper intellectual stance is one of Swiss neutrality.
But the fact is that the sinner’s default setting isn’t neutrality, but hatred of God. It’s the supreme act of defiance to declare oneself – a mere created being – capable of thinking about life’s vast array of facts without reference to God’s word. But, in the sham logic of the time, it’s the Biblical Christian that’s accused of arrogance for quoting Scripture as the final arbiter of life’s affairs. Sinful man, dead-set on his course of defiance, rejects God’s authoritative word over him. Consequently, he ends up adrift in the sea of life, battered by events, endeavoring to make decisions upon the foundation of self. And since he knows that he can’t know everything, he therefore demands that no one else can know everything either. The tragic and desultory result is a life of skepticism toward all things except the word of God (he knows absolutely, in defiance of his principle of subjectiveness, that it isn’t authoritative). For this reason the anti-Christ mindset is the conformity to the false principle of neutrality. For sinful man to continue with his facade that God hasn’t spoken in the Bible, and that His word isn’t authoritative, he must maintain the lie that mystery is ultimate; he must abolish logic and reason and the appeal to God’s word as final. But this means that he isn’t neutral, except he hides this fact from his own mind. It’s the original deceit man plays upon himself to keep down the knowledge of God and he’s always at it, endlessly toiling in futility to declare his own word final and God’s word void.
The thing to know and remember is that no one is or can be neutral. All thinking has to start from and conclude with final authority or else all thinking is philosophically absurd. All that man says and does is, in the end, moral, precisely because this is God’s world and God is righteous, so His creation (life) reflects His character.
The flagrant and brazen stupidity of the culture and church would appear to be the crisis of our time but this is the consequence of the myth of neutrality, of man play-acting in life and erecting elaborate sand-castles of philosophy and reasoning. The further he goes down the trail of autonomy/neutrality, the greater and more comical are his contradictions. How else can one see an America that protests sins from hundreds of years ago (slavery) but ignores the wholesale slaughter of over 60 million souls in its midst (abortion)? How else can America make sense of the odd scene of protestors who hate Donald Trump’s idea of a border wall take over downtown Seattle, declare it their own “autonomous” zone, and then erect barrier/walls? Or what to make of universities that teach students there are no moral absolutes but demand students not cheat on tests? What to make of the deluded millions of citizens who say there is no God and life is chance but are incessantly making moral arguments (flawed ones at that) about politics? What to make of people who declare that there are no moral absolutes but then demand that one and all accept, even celebrate, one person’s evaluation of their sexuality? Why does one’s thoughts on their gender override another’s thoughts? By what standard are we to judge if there is no ultimate standard?
We don’t have a trickle of irrationality, nor even a flood. We have a deluge, a tidal wave and often God’s judgment against a person and nation is to stop protecting them from the consequences of their half-baked and vacuous ideas.
Real Christianity is the life spent in the word of God, getting to know God and wanting Him more than anything else. To know that the path to the good life is that path where one’s foot is always steady on God’s word, is the truth. To look at every issue in life and say to oneself, before reaching a conclusion, “what do the principles of Scripture say?” is the lone way to wisdom. A relationship with God that’s ignorant of the Bible is like a husband who doesn’t have a clue what his wife is doing. Does she work? No idea. What’s she do with her time? That’s a good question. When was the last time you spoke with her? I don’t recall…it’s been a while.
A man loves a woman and cherishes his time with her. He wants to know what she’s thinking and what her needs are so that he might meet them – and he does this not out of duty but out of love. Thus it is with the Christian who loves Jesus Christ. He knows that Christ died for him and has set him free from the former futility that was walking in neutrality and trying to discover meaning and purpose in a life that was all chaos and mystery. Now, he seeks to be transformed by the renewal of his mind because of that love that God poured into his heart through Christ. His old principle was self; the new one tells him that the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul and that the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.
So, if you are dry in these days, your soul parched, run to that well, Christian, and draw up the great truths and wisdom that are yours in Christ. And know that these truths you behold, the divine principles that illuminate the sin-darkened world, are also basked in love – a personal love that God has for you. Truth isn’t dry, it’s Christ and God’s word! Do not be conformed to this world’s insistence on thinking about life without God. Turn to Him, submit to His wondrous and life-giving word, and your heart will break with a sweet gladness, your eyes will see aright, and your steps will be steady.
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