“Therefore, I urge you, brothers (sic), in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

When we decide to be followers of God via Jesus Christ something happens to our mind or at least it should. Everyday after we make that decision, we, with God’s help, begin to transform (metamorphosis-the same word used when a caterpillar changes into a butterfly). It is not only a superficial change on the outside but a substantial change from the inside out. We begin to shake off the tendency to conform (which comes from the Latin word meaning to change one’s shape, to behave in a socially acceptable way) to the world around us. I do not mean that we should stop using forks or begin using horses and buggies, but rather we begin to rethink how we choose friends, treat strangers, set priorities or make decisions. Paul says by renewing our minds we reorient our bodies.

As I was thinking about all of this, I came upon a couple of articles in Psychology Today, which were focused on how we view ourselves. One author (Robin R. Vallacher) says that, depending on our willpower, many of us gauge our personality based on the feedback from others; while those with a strong identity tend to be able to “reinterpret, reject or accept information based on their own coherent sense of self.” I would argue that those of us on our spiritual journey will eventually come to that point where we begin to move away from what others think to what we think about ourselves and what we think God thinks of who we are. We shift from being other-directed individuals to inner-directed individuals. Jason Riis of New York University claims, based on research, that when individuals are told that if they could take a pill which would change their personality, something which would make them more than they are, people tend to shy away from anything which might change their personality, such as changing from an introvert to an extrovert. If it only affected a secondary characteristic such as memory or social comfort, they seemed to be OK with it. Riis says the only time that individuals agreed to personality changes was when it involved some sort of mental-training exercise such as physical exercise, yoga or religion. Individuals seem to think that if they put out some effort then they see it as “just bringing out the best in themselves.”

I say all of the above to make this point about transformation: This is what Paul is calling us to do with our lives, namely, to make a decision and stick with it, work on it, incorporate it into who we are, allow our relationship with God in Christ to “bring out the best in ourselves,” to say the least.
Phillip Yancey, in his book If I’m Honest, brings it all home with this illustration of a submarine verses a fish. If you were to climb into a submarine you might think that, as long as it held watertight, you could glide on down to the bottom of the ocean. Sadly, if you tried to do this you'd soon discover how mistaken you are. Submarines can only go so deep before the pressure of the water crushes them like an empty soft drink can being crumpled by your hand. Indeed, a number of years ago a submarine called the Thresher went down too deep. The water pressure rose to the point that the submarines heavy steel bulkheads were crushed. The sub was torn apart, leaving pieces of debris scattered across the ocean floor for searchers to find. If you want to go down really deep you need a specially designed research vessel shielded by heavy steel armor.

Now imagine you jumped into one of these heavily clad research vessels and headed down to the ocean depths. Guess what you'd find? Fish. Fish! Fish with skin just millimeters thick. How is it that fish with just a thin skin covering can survive the pressure of such great depths, where a submarine with thick steel plates cannot? The answer is quite simple: Fish have equal and opposite pressure inside them. Submarines do not.

When confronting the pressures of the world in which we live some Christians try to become like a submarine, shielding themselves from the outside world, strapping themselves into a narrow space where they are safe from external pressures. They make rules which are designed to reinforce them against temptation. But unfortunately, the deeper into life we go the more inadequate this approach will be. The external pressure will just become too great. This is why we need to be like the fish, to develop positive pressure inside ourselves. Rather than simply resisting the outward pressure of temptation we need to combat it by building up positive spiritual pressure within, replacing the values the world would impose with the Spirit developed character of Christ.
—Pastor Gary