February 17, 2021: Does Our World Around Us Influence What We Become or Do We Allow God To?

Our world around us is constantly changing and not for the better. If you look at our family values from fifty years ago or even twenty years ago, what we may have chosen not do in our behavior then, we seem to do today. As the world's standards and influences change, so do we.

Living together outside of marriage was looked down upon fifty years ago. That kind of relationship was done in secret. We were embarrassed to let our family and friends know we were living together outside the boundaries of matrimony. Being bi-sexual or homosexual was kept behind closed doors. But today, we celebrate it and have large parades flaunting our gay liberties.

The big question is: How has this happened? Why do we continue to allow these changes to take place in our very own character values? The simple answer is because we have let our values be influenced less by God's word and more by the world's standards as they change.

The Book of Romans, throughout its chapters, outline how we should and should not live. Then as we come to chapter 12 in the book, the Apostle Paul gives us a strong admonishment. Read the following and ask yourself if you are living as he states:

Romans 12: 1-3

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. 2 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.

I know as I read the above verse, I am convicted as to how I am not living my life as pleasing to God as I should. And, as long as I try to live my life under my own strength, I never will. It is only through our "absolute surrender" to God and the giving up of our "self-will" will we ever begin to please God. It is only through the sole power of the "Holy Spirit" living through us can we begin to please God.

PERSONNAL COMMENT:

My prayer for all who read today's post, will come to the point in their life to realize that their life is not pleasing to God and come to complete and "absolute surrender" to God today, and begin to influence their life around them with God's influences not the world's.