Thursday, November 11, 2021
In a Day
The World Was Transformed,
Covered Clean With Snow,
Now If We Could Only Do That
With Our Hearts and Minds,
a clean slate!
Genesis 3:6
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Words of Grace For Today
Original sin comes in many variations, like the Genesis story of the Fall (eating fruit from the forbidden tree, and gaining knowledge of good and evil).
Moving ourselves out of sin comes in many forms, like Romans (appears to) in this short passage: just resist being like the rest of the world (corrupt and sinful), and instead be transformed by renewing our minds in order that we can discern the will of God, the knowledge of what is good, acceptable and perfect.
Of course …
first, that is not the whole story of the Gospel that Paul presents in his letter to the Romans, and
second, knowing what is good (by God’s standards), acceptable (to God), and perfect (as God determines it to be) does not bring us any closer to being good, acceptable and perfect.
Paul makes it clear that we can never be any of that … on our own.
Only by the Grace of God, and then only by the work of the Holy Spirit in us, bringing to be things that we had no idea were possible or that we were in the middle of doing!
God works
God works in us
God works in us in ways we cannot understand
God works in us in ways we cannot understand and sometimes the best we do is
eat the forbidden fruit – do you like apples?
And
plan to transform our minds to know God’s will – do you like the truth of how far you are from perfect?
So we work not to be taken in by the devil’s empty promises.
So we strive to fear and love God in all things.
So we strive to be perfect
all the while knowing that all that is God is only so by God’s own doing, in us, around us, in all the universe.
And we pray our thanks and our petitions that what ails us would be put right, for ourselves and maybe we learn that our enemies need the putting right to happen even more than we do.