Transformation

Transformation means a marked change, as in appearance or character, usually for the better. Somehow we all think that we transform by our effort to read, study, or perform better. In the kingdom of God transformation does not really come by some hard effort on our part. It comes by placing our attention on God in our everyday life and allowing God to work.

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

Romans 12:1-3

Notice that we need to "fix our attention on God." This means that we need to be able to recognize what God wants and respond. This attention is not working hard on something that we want and hope that God then responds, it is completely the opposite! We do not bring anything "good' to God, as Paul writes here. "God brings it all to you." We must understand ourselves by who and what God is and what God does for us, not by what we do or who we are. This allows us to relax and become aware of, and focus our attention on, the fact that God is working it all out. Our attention does not need to be placed on our physcial body and our physcial surroundings, but on the infinite, unseen part of us that is really who we are. We are spiritual beings that have a physical body for a moment, not physical presence that happens to have a spirit. We we focus on this - our spirit - we are placing our attention on God and allowing God to work. We no longer are focused on striving and trying to make our physcial life the way we want it. We become focused on God and allowing God to work and bring us, make us, what God wants. This is the "way that we understand ourselves." Change your focus today and place your attention on God. Take your attention off the worries of your physical world and place it on your spirit and God. Stop tyring and striving thinking that God will respond to your hard work. Allow God to show you who you are and respond to that. This is how we transform and we change in appearence and character for the better.

Namaste'