· He is not calling us just to some large prayer rallies. Though prayer is where it all has to start, He is calling us to become changed people.
· He is not calling us just to sing and dance and clap. He is calling us to think and behave differently.
· He is not calling us just to get the family together for a public raise session. He is calling us to live out different family lifestyles back home, between Ma and Pa and between the kids and their parents.
· Nor is He calling young people just to celebrate the joys of Christian togetherness with a lot of other people in a stadium wingding. He is calling kids to stop cheating at school, quit sleeping around, cut out foul language, get into their Bibles and start seeking His will for their future.
· He is not calling businesspeople just to send a cheque to help with stadium or publicity costs. He is calling for every business in every country to be different – marked not by corner-cutting, shady deals and dog-eat-dog, but by decent, humane treatment of people, integrity, the rate for the job, proper societal responsibility, plus honesty with all, including the taxman and his laws.
· He is not calling politicians just to send polite, politically correct endorsements of spiritual happenings or moral regeneration movements. He is calling politicians to clean up their act, shed corruption, forsake ladder-climbing, embrace self-sacrifice and start becoming a frugal-living leadership led by God.
· God is not calling the media just to cover transformation events on TV or radio or in the press. He is calling our media to stop inflicting the garbage of violence, explicit sex, four-letter words and pornographic material on a gullible public, but rather produce and disseminate that which is wholesome and conducive to family values and a sound society.
· And God is not calling our local churches and Christian leaders to look good, but actually to be good and do good. He wants our churches transformed from inward-looking, maintenance-mode Christian clubs to living, loving, laughing, Spirit-led fellowship of outward-moving, caring, sharing people who move together in unity (see Eph 4:11-16) and who are salt arresting national decay, and light dispelling societal darkness.
· On the HIV/Aids issue – certainly the biggest Goliath in Africa and in most continents – I don’t think God is just calling for care for victims (vital as that is), plus so called “safe sex” education (a misnomer if ever there was one) plus anti-retroviral drugs for those suffering from HIV (please let’s do give them), but God is calling for biblical change in sexual behavior. That means: girls, don’t flaunt yourselves; men, zip up. And everyone, get in line with God’s ways on sex. That means sexual abstinence before marriage and sexual faithfulness within marriage.
You see, friends, God is not calling us to find a polite corner for Him amidst our other little idols and foreign gods of money, materialism, pleasure, power, sex, entertainment, status and so on. He is calling us to put Him first, forsake all idolatry, humble ourselves, pray, turn from our sinful ways and seek His face. Only then can He forgive our sin and heal our land (2 Chron 7:14).
We must pray: “Lord, help me take my first steps along this path. Let me do my bit in beginning to change myself, my family, my church, my nation and my continent.”
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, 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 you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” (Rom 12:1-2).
You see, if we don’t get it that God is really on about spiritual, moral and social transformation on all fronts and at all levels, we will perpetuate across the globe the current Christian tragedy of my continent, namely Africa, where we have some 380 million professed Christians – nearly 50 percent of the continent’s population – yet a continent in many ways going down the tube morally, socially, politically and economically. I believe Christians are to blame because we have preached only a salvation message - that is, how to be saved, born again, shout hallelujah and so on – and not a Kingdom message where we learn how to bring all of life – personal, marital, sexual, economic, politic, etc – under the kingship of Christ, so that wherever Christians are in any sector of society they are making a godly difference regarding how things actually function.
Now when the apostle Paul says very simply “Be transformed” (Rom 12:2), he is basically asking us to think and live as Jesus thought and lived when He was on earth. We are to pray: “Lord, please help me to live today as you would live it if you were I.” Quite a tall order! But that’s what the transformation movement and the Bible’s idea of transformation is calling for. It is calling for us to decide and resolve to live in the Kingdom and make it come in my or our small corner on earth by resolving very deliberately to obey the example and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Hopefully, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we’ll say: “Yes, yes, Lord, a thousand times yes. I want to follow You that way.” Why? Because we know that the best, most sensible bargain on earth – better, more productive and more eternally far-reaching than any other – is to sell-out 110 percent to Jesus Christ.
Paul answers this in Romans 12:1-2 with a fourfold appeal:
1. Present your bodies a living sacrifice. This means offering him every part of our bodies from our feet, hands and sexual organs to our eyes, ears, tongue, intellect and gifts. Let Him have full control of each. Get somewhere quiet and pray systematically over each part of your body and think of the implications of giving each to Him fully and comprehensively.
2. Do not be conformed to this world. This means turning our back on the “world” (see John 15:18) in the sense of global culture, which has organized itself, its thought life, its behavior, its social systems, its entertainment and its media content around self and self-gratification and not around God. The “world” of which we now speak will make bad seem good and wrong seem right. So the disciple in the transformation movement prays: “Lord, please help me not to be seduced by the world’s ways, thinking, standards and behavior.”
3. But be transformed by the renewal of your mind. The first step here is that of filling our minds with Scripture – even memorizing it – and also getting into good Christian reading. If this becomes the way we think, and the focus of our thought life, then our idea system will start to line up with that of Jesus. We won’t think the world’s way. We’ll think His way. In this regard, I want to encourage you to become systematic in the way you read the Bible – get a system going and try to hang in with it.
4. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. And this is, we note, is “good, pleasing and perfect.” How wonderful! You have this mysterious opportunity of your life, this one chance to journey across Planet Earth, and you must find God’s highest and best purpose for you. There will be no chance for another run at it. This is our time to live and journey here on Earth, and we must find God’s highest and best will for us – His Plan A.
This you and I can do, as we believe God wants to guide us (see Psalm 143:10, Proverbs 3:6), as we pray for His guidance and will and then make intelligent, godly, Bible-based decisions. The counsel of family or Christian friends will help, plus the way God opens and closes doors and gives each serious disciple His peace.
Conclusion
Something to note in conclusion is that fellowship and interaction with others who are seeking renewed minds and God’s perfect is equally vital. So be active in a good church, which truly preaches the Gospel, and participate in a fellowship group, Alpha course, or pray with Christian friends. All this is part of journeying with fellow pilgrims toward a renewed Christian mind and spiritual transformation into the likeness of Christ.
Related to this is the key dimension of the work of the Holy Spirit, as stressed by Paul in Romans 8:1-27 (please look it up.) The Apostle also tells believers to be “filled with the Spirit.” (Eph 5:18). This happens as we constantly give and re-give ourselves to Christ and surrender more and more of our bodies and beings to Him. In reality we are as full of the Holy Spirit as our surrender allows us to be.
As you walk this way with a transformed and renewed mind, in the power of the Spirit, in the will of God, and yielded fully to Him as a living sacrifice, I promise you God will use you as an instrument of His peace and as an agent of transformation, wherever you are and in whatever you do.