This morning I woke up with some “junk” on my mind – frustrations from the previous week, stress from work situations that did not go as planned, guilt on missing the mark in my relationship with God.

From my previous experiences, and also from sheer exhaustion of trying to live my life on my own, I desire to run to God in prayer when my mind is cluttered with these “junk” thoughts.

I know that my first thoughts of the day need to be on Him, and not my frustrations from this past week.

This morning, I prayed to God for him to take these “junk” thoughts and feelings from me. God immediately reminded me to “renew my mind” each day in Him … recalling this verse in Romans, I opened up the bible to give it a read.

Romans 12:1-2 (MSG) said;

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.

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I ended up writing out this verse by hand this morning and noticed some interesting observations of what Paul said here.

1) We have clear direction to make our lives and everything in it about him as an offering. This is a choice we make daily to take the ordinary things we do in life and make them about Him as an offering. Everyone does the things Paul mentions here (sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around life). In fact, he calls them ordinary – the difference is how we choose to do them, and whom we do them for. Are these things done in an honoring way to God, or are they done for only for us? This is the choice.

Paul also notes, that these things are to be placed before God as an offering. Well, an offering is something of value done and given as a gift or contribution to another as a token of kindness, love, or devotion.

Doing these things as an offering means that the ordinary things we do in life are done in motivation to make God pleased.

To me, this comes down to a question of motives. When I sleep, do I truly want to make sure I get enough rest to be energized and ready to serve and do valuable work for others? When I eat, do I eat healthy and enough (or) not too much so that my body is kept healthy and strong as a temple to the Lord? Is my work done in an honest and truthful way to benefit my company and others, inline with biblical principles?

2) We are to willingly and enthusiastically accept (or embrace) the things God does for us daily. This is also a choice. We have a daily choice to accept the fact that all things, including; the breath in our lungs, the food we receive, the job that we have, the music we get to enjoy, and ultimately the life that Christ gives to us, as a gift from God.

Paul tells us “embracing what God does for us is the best thing we can do for him.” In other words, embracing these gifts from God is a valuable offering to Him, which acknowledges Him as the creator. This is how we are to daily place our lives before God.

3) We are called to be different. I admit that these two choices of (1) making our ordinary life an offering to God, and (2) choosing to embrace the belief that all things comes from God are indeed a different way of thinking. Especially when compared to the many other ways one can think and be motivated in this world. However, I believe this is exactly the point Paul wants to make in this verse.

We as followers of Christ are called to be different in the way we think, the way we make choices, and in the motives we have deep within our heart.

I like how Paul says; “we are not to be so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without thinking”. To me this means that our habits or instinctive characteristics are supposed to default to the daily choice of (1) offering our ordinary behaviors in life to God, and (2) embracing the belief that all things are from the creator God through Jesus. This is to be our instinctive behavior as opposed to the contrary motives of being self-driven for personal benefit and gain.

Now, one other thing to notice here is that we are still supposed to fit into, understand, and connection with this world. But, it should require us to think and use our God-given critical judgment, human intelligence, and Christ-centered motives intentionally to do this. Again, our first instinctive behaviors are to God.

4) We are to focus our attention on God. Now I further admit that this can sound exhausting. In fact, I guarantee you if you try to do these things on your own strength, you will 100% fail. Please trust me on this, I have tried that for many years and it simply does not work.

Here is probably the most important part of these verses Paul is explaining, please do not miss this:

“Fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. You will be able to readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly be able to respond.

As Paul outlines earlier, we are to (1) make our ordinary life an offering to God, and (2) choose to embrace the belief that all things come from God, which in turn (3) makes our lives different than others in this world.

None of these things are possible without the strength and power of God, which is the focal point that Paul is trying to make.

Transformation happen here – our lives and the motives of our heart will be changed from the inside out once we focus our attention on God through the studying of the bible, and the uninterrupted, unhurried time with him in prayer.

If we try to do these things on our own, apart from focusing on God through the bible and prayer, the sheer exhaustion, frustration, guilt and stress of it all with collapse us – and this is exactly where I was this morning.

When we have this feeling, our immediate response should be to run to him in prayer and time in the bible. This allows us to encounter God and to have him fill us up with His grace and power – doing this consistently will transform your life and is exactly what Paul meant when he said, “We’ll be changed from the Inside Out”.

5) God will bring the very best out of you. This is the most important choice we can make. We decide what we get to embrace and put into our mind and into our heart. Simply put; whatever you put in, is what you’ll get out.

If You Put Junk in; You’ll Get Junk Out.

There will be something coming into our mind and into your heart. Either the “junk” of frustrations, un-purposeful stress, missed expectations, guilt, or the saving grace, promise, and relationship we can have with God through his son Jesus Christ. This is the biggest choice we have to embrace in our lives.

The transformation process we will then go through by spending time with God through the studying of the bible, and the uninterrupted, unhurried time with him in prayer, will quite literally make us into the very best person we are created to be. The choice this comes down to is, will we embrace a relationship with Jesus Christ, then spend the time with God through his word and in prayer?

The last thing that I loved reading was that “God brings the best out of you, and develops well-formed maturity in you. We serve a God that has an incredible, world changing, meaning-filled life to live, and I love how through our relationship with him, he is developing us to the very of what we are created for!

I am very grateful to our God for this reminder from Him this morning. I truly and sincerely hope this verse encourages you wherever you may be in your life.

Please remember, what God has inside of you is far too important for you to keep on your own. You were born with purpose!