WITH A NEW MIND
In Ro 12:1-2, Paul speaks about true worship: we must worship him in a way that befits us, and the only way worthy of thinking beings is to offer “our living bodies” to God, which means to offer ourselves: our minds, our hearts and our bodies. The Revised Standard Version translates: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God”.
In our culture, there is a culture of the body, which looks for satisfaction and pleasure as supreme values. In the Bible, be it in the OT or in the NT, we can find as well the importance of the body, in such way that there is no true salvation without the body sharing in that salvation. In the end, we are not human beings without a body; and Jesus came to save human beings. That’s why resurrection is part of the mystery of salvation. The only sacrifice that God accepts from us is the sacrifice of ourselves in communion with the sacrifice of Christ. As must offer ourselves to him, we must offer our bodies as well, because they belong to him.
We should not allow ourselves to be guided by “the behaviour of the world around” us. We must be guided by a new way of thinking and a new vision of the world, the one that we receive from Christ. We cannot argue that everybody does it, so we can do it as well. Everybody steals; why should we not steal? Everybody profits from his position; why we not do the same? Everybody bribes or receives bribes; why should we not behave in the same way? Everybody has an affair and betrays his/ her spouse; so what is wrong with that? If everybody does, I can do it as well. As followers of Jesus Christ, we must think and behave like Jesus Christ. With the mind of Christ, we can know what is good and honourable and we can discover “the will of God”.
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