Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Romans 12, Msg

So, for my spiritual formations class, we're about to start working through Romans 12-16, meditating on scripture. Today, I read the first half of Romans 12 in the Message. Very good stuff:

Romans 12 (The Message)

Place Your Life Before God

 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

 3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

 4-6In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around. The body we're talking about is Christ's body of chosen people. Each of us finds our meaning and function as a part of his body. But as a chopped-off finger or cut-off toe we wouldn't amount to much, would we? So since we find ourselves fashioned into all these excellently formed and marvelously functioning parts in Christ's body, let's just go ahead and be what we were made to be, without enviously or pridefully comparing ourselves with each other, or trying to be something we aren't.

 6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

So many things about this passage really jumped out at me, but probably one overall theme in particular: together. Individually, together with God, and as a whole, together with each other and God. But either way, together.

I think this gets me because I find myself just wanting to do everything, well, myself. I want God to equip me and let me go. Wind me up and let me spin, or whatever. But depending on Him? Ugh. That's too difficult. Too unpredictable. Too not about me and what I want, really.

But, as something I read yesterday pointed out (Beth Moore, Breaking Free), it's not about what He enables us to do, or what He gives us, but about Him.

KNOWing Him.

That's the point. The reason. Etc. And this passage is all about that—knowing, believing, trusting Him and letting Him change us, and then being a part of community through that. We were made to be, work, live TOGETHER—with Him and with others. And that's why independence (ie, self-centeredness) is so ugly.

Here it really rears its ugly head:

 6-8If you preach, just preach God's Message, nothing else; if you help, just help, don't take over; if you teach, stick to your teaching; if you give encouraging guidance, be careful that you don't get bossy; if you're put in charge, don't manipulate; if you're called to give aid to people in distress, keep your eyes open and be quick to respond; if you work with the disadvantaged, don't let yourself get irritated with them or depressed by them. Keep a smile on your face.

How many times have I done just the opposite though? Come in with my plan, my way, my ideas—me, me me…But that's not the way it's supposed to be. We each have a part to play, an important part too—but we are not THE point. We are a part of an amazing story, but not the central key hero of the story. There was something else I read recently as well, in Galatians or 1 Timothy that had a similar tone—the idea of serving without coming with an agenda.

Somehow, we've gotten lost in all that. we want everyone to have fun, everyone to be happy, everyone to win, everyone to be in charge. La de da.

What does that look like? Chaos, that's my guess. A bunch of messy, self centered people who are constantly huffing and puffing and picking up their toys and heading home because they can't have their way. or pushing and fighting and manipulating until others give in.

Very ugly.

Very good stuff. Wow, I could go on about this for a while! Anyway, definitely something to pray about!

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