Devotion for Friday, December 2, 2011
Romans 12:1-21 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
In today’s text Paul pleads with us to present ourselves as sacrifices to God. How do we do that? Paul answers- Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. When our thoughts are being influenced more by the world than by God then we are being conformed to this world. When we’re being conformed to this world, then we are not presenting ourselves as sacrifices to God.
How are we influenced by the thoughts of this world? The biggest influence is the media.
Now not all media is wrong. In fact some media can help us to renew our mind.
But much of the media out there does move more toward conforming us to the world than renewing our mind.
Application:
Is the media that you are taking in renewing your mind or conforming you to the world?
Study the Scriptures with Ben Jennings 
I am not being conformed to te world, I am not Behaving According to social TV and I’m not being what they want me to be so that I can be accepted. Yea like pastor Ben said not all media are wrong and some do help us reneww our minds. The bad media has this picture that we should all be acne free and a supermodel and buy there products that will make you more beautiful or ect. The good media sometimes tells us that the world doesn’t revol around us,but we can revol aroung the earth and that there’s people who are not as lucky as we are and we need to do sample thing about it, some talk about to stop bullying, to start eating healtyer and ect. Me? I am not conformed To the world, it is renewing my mind! :).
I am not being conformed to te world, I am not Behaving According to social TV and I’m not being what they want me to be so that I can be accepted. Yea like pastor Ben said not all media are wrong and some do help us reneww our minds. The bad media has this picture that we should all be acne free and a supermodel and buy there products that will make you more beautiful or ect. The good media sometimes tells us that the world doesn’t revol around us,but we can revol aroung the earth and that there’s people who are not as lucky as we are and we need to do sample thing about it, some talk about to stop bullying, to start eating healtyer and ect. Me? I am not conformed To the world, it is renewing my mind!.
P.S. I don’t think I did a very good job on the devotions today!
Sorry i did it twice the first time I thought it didnt go through.
I have one question.. What does “conformed” mean? …..
I got this from google.. Conformed: To behave according to socially acceptable conventions or standards: “the pressure to conform”.
Hope that helped 🙂
Thanks alot Alexis! 🙂
What I got out of this is the media is a powerful thing but it says that if we doing stuff on the media not like super bad but like maybe it has a couple curse words and it says some bad stuff that’s what it’s saying like it’s of the world and not of God.
It din’t post my full comment sorry
These verses have actually been really helpful to me! I have them on written down where I can see it in my room, to remember it 🙂 Sometimes it can be really hard to present myself as a living sacrifice that is: holy, and acceptable to God, because I mess up a lot and I’m always having to ask for forgiveness. But even though I do mess up a lot and have to ask for forgiveness constantly, I still try my best to be what God wants me to be.
There’s a huge difference between media that can conform us and media that can transform us! Actually, I’m not even sure if media can transform us in a good way?! But we can use the good media to transform ourselves into what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God! This doesn’t happen on our own though, as with everything, WE NEED GOD! I can’t expect to transform myself into who God wants me to be without His help. And another good thing to remember is that this doesn’t happen over night! I used to think that it would, like this is what’s wrong in my life and I need to fix it so it should be gone by tomorrow. But that’s not how it works. It’s a process!
Overall, I think it’s just a good think to be careful about what you watch/listen to or even believe when it comes to the media. I don’t know about you guys, but I really DO NOT want to be conformed to this world. After all, this isn’t my home & it’s not where I belong. Cause I belong with Jesus 🙂
Alexis, good help for Tristian! The “good media” does not indeed transform us, but as the verse says it (transformation) happens by the renewing of our minds. The holy spirit does this work by reading and studying God’s word. That means that God does the transforming work. Conforming implies that we do some part of what happens….transforming is done as a process to us. Awesome job all week!
I used to be really big on what the world thought of me. I bid into those advertisements of how you had to look like this and have to have this to be with the rest of the world. I forgot to remember what and who God made me. I’m not sure who I am to others, but honestly I don’t really think it matters. I used to get made fun of a lot, especially by these two guys when I was in 7th grade. To me I wanted to sink down in my seat and just cry, but now it’s like why did I care? The media has a way, just like Satan does, to persue us and others to believe things that aren’t true. Most of the time people believe it. I know I’m not 100 lbs, 5’7, gorgeous, have a lot of money and a nice car, but I don’t want to be any of those things. Because God made me who I am for a reason, and letting the media conform me or my way of thinking is straying from who God made me and who the world wants to make me..
Super excited for tomorrow! 🙂
Melanie, you are exactly on track! Praying for you for tomorrow, and I hope everyone is looking forward to tomorrow night!
Alot of media out there is bad and I’m trying not to look into it.