Here’s a follow-up from yesterday’s piece about transformation and renewal.
Or actually, it’s a little outline of what I’m going to be talking about tomorrow, as I am called to speak during the school’s United Nations Day event.
I was told that the theme was something to the tune of, ‘Transforming the World by renewing Society’; and in case we haven’t noticed, this was something we’ve seen literally in the past couple of years. How so, you ask?
Well, because of the scare of the Covid-19 Virus about every single country with media coverage around the world started implementing everything from lockdowns to checkpoints, from face shields to face masks, hand sanitizing and social distancing, vaccines and isolation. As a result we’ve seen the rise of online entrepreneurship and businesses and we’ve seen a change in how we vote and how we aggregate information, among other things. There were changes in a global scale which were as were expected, but we’ve also seen some other things we didn’t really anticipate – We’ve seen air quality levels restored significantly due to the reduction of travel; the world literally rested and recovered. You see how we’ve made changes to Society, and the World was transformed.
There’s certainly a call for us to make changes to society so we would make an impact on the world… But for the majority of us we may not necessarily have the resources and the capabilities to initiate change on that level. But here’s the good news – it’s not necessarily our priority to make changes on a societal level, because no matter how rich or poor we are, no matter how much power we have or how weak we think of ourselves, the real priority is not to renew Society, but to renew our own minds.
That’s right. See, when a theme mentions key words such as transformation and renewal, as believers we could not resist but to recall that there is one verse in the Bible that mentions these same words in the same verse, and I’m talking about Romans 12:2, where it says – ‘Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’
So if, in this day of all days, United Nations Day – if we’re trying to say today that our goal is to make an impact in this world, to transform this world, then we would do good to renew society. And what I’m trying to say is if we’re trying to renew this society, it starts with transforming ourselves; and the Holy Spirit is telling us that if we are to transform ourselves, it begins with renewing our mind.
What exactly are we changing, if we say we’re renewing our mind? Well, the word in the verse as mentioned in the original Greek is metanoia – One of our Senior Pastor’s favorite words, it means to change the way we think. So if you want to change the world, it starts with changing the way you think.
And I could end the message right there, and tell anyone and everyone within the sound of my voice that changing your mind is key. I could quote Alvin Toffler, who mentioned that in order for us to even be competent in this day and age, we would need to learn, unlearn, and relearn. I admit that this is enough for us, and we could go on to make great changes in the world.
But I would not be respecting you if I knew something more than this – see, it’s quite simple. No matter how exposed or how distant you probably are from religion, you’ve probably heard of the famous passage from the Bible, which states that God loved the world, so much that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Friends, I’m here to save you some time – see, again, you could start to think for yourself, how you could change your mind to change the world – but I’m here to share some good news with you that I know will leave an impact in your own life more than anything else you think can initiate change.
It’s pretty simple. You are loved by God. You are loved by the everlasting and eternal God, who is beyond time and space, and who is beyond deadlines and borders. You’re loved by God, and it’s not just any sort of love that we like to communicate by way of our teledramas or even basing on our own experience – You’re loved by God, and He loves you with an everlasting love, a love which has no end, and has no limits.
And it doesn’t matter who you are in this world, whatever you’ve gone through, whatever you’ve done, whatever you’re experiencing right now. We’re speaking of United Nations, and if there’s anything that any and all of the Nations of the world can agree on today, it’s that we are all equally loved, and loved with an everlasting love, that only an everlasting God could give to us.
How can I be so bold to say that you are loved, even if I don’t know you, or what you’ve been through, or what you’re going through? Simple – The Word says God loved the WORLD, with no exceptions. He thought about all of us, down to the deepest corners of each and every one of our souls, and He still made the conscious choice and commitment to love us; and when God loves, He gives everything.
How do I know this? He gave us no less than the Lord Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son. Through Jesus’ birth, death, resurrection and ascension, we have beheld how full and how committed God is in loving us, both now and forever.
The Word says that God’s goodness leads to repentance, and you can look no further than Christ to see the best of God. Simply put, if you consider the goodness of God, as seen through His Son, Jesus Christ – well, there’s no better way for your own mind to be renewed, there’s no better way for you to be transformed, no better way for the Society you see to be renewed, and no better way for the world to be transformed.
Until the next post, God bless you.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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