“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”
Society holds standards, but should they be our standards? How should we live our lives as Christians in a fallen world?
Looking at the verse above, let’s unpack the first part, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world”. To conform, according to the dictionary, is to comply with rules, standards and laws. It means to be similar to, and it means to follow. Now, the pattern of this world basically means the way of this world. Their culture, the trends and basically the things they define as good and best. This verse is telling us not to follow or comply with our world’s trends, culture and standards.
I want you to think for a moment, what are your standards? If I were to be honest, my appearance standards are to be slim, to have fair skin and to be tall. My academic standards would be to be the top student, getting straight A’s. I thought these were my standards, because these are the things that I want for myself; to make myself feel successful, good and happy. Until someone said to me, “You might think they’re your standards, but if you really look closer at your standards, they are all based on what the world thinks is good too, right? “ Then I looked at my own standards, and realised that it was true. My beauty standards were to have fair skin, a slim body and to be tall. Can you see that these beauty standards I have actually align with what kpop idols have? These aren’t actually my standards, they are the world’s standards. As you know, almost everyone listens to K-pop now, which sets Asian beauty standards, and they, in turn, are the beauty standards that I have set for myself. All my standards are influenced by what the world thinks! There is nothing wrong with wanting to have a slim body or fair skin, but we shouldn’t depend on it to make us secure, or prioritise it above all things in our lives.
There’s a second part to this verse which says, “But be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. This means to be doing away with unhealthy thought patterns and replacing them with true, godly ones. This is hard, because the culture of this world has already shaped our mind so that we believe the same thing as what the world believes. Getting rid of unhealthy thoughts and habits is hard, and this is why we need to pray to God for strength and for help.
And the last part of the verse is, “ Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will”. This verse is saying that if we are transformed by the renewing of our mind, we will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. If you look at the verse before, it says “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”. This verse shows us God’s will and God’s standards that He Himself has set for us, which is to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice. What this means is that we should truly devote our lives to serving and glorifying Him. Although it might not be to go out to the mission field, we should devote our lives to Him and start praying that He may use us.
Another standard God has set for us is to live a life holy and pleasing to God. Holy means to be set apart, and in this context, it means to be set apart from this world, like we discussed earlier, from the way of the world to the standards, culture, trends and things that they define as good or the best. We have to be set apart from those things, for they are unholy. The world’s standards have been messed up – abortion, LGBTQ, swearing etc. – and while these things do not seem wrong, this is because the world slowly and subtly changes God’s standards and progressively gets worse. But they are going against God’s will. God has designed us in a certain way, yet we think that going against His design because “We have free will!” or “I’m doing what makes me happy,” is ok.
We have to live a life holy and pleasing to God, we have to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice, but, why exactly should we do this? In the beginning of the second verse included, it starts with “Therefore I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy…”. We don’t go out of our way and risk our security and our lives for nothing. We do it because God’s mercy, grace and sacrifice is much more than anything that we can ever do. God chose to make us, and chose to send Jesus down to redeem us.
So, to summarise this article, we can’t make what the world believes our standards to make us secure and have value. Instead, we should follow the standards Jesus has set for us, which is to live a holy life, set apart from this world. Jesus has given us an indescribable amount of mercy and grace for us, and he has sacrificed so much for us. How could we not give as much as we can back to Him?
