Choose or Lose

Romans 12:2 - “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.”


I always seem to roam to Romans. I read this verse for probably the millionth time but couldn’t seem too get past it. I tried reading further but kept coming back to this verse like I was missing something. Don’t you hate that when that happens?

I was stuck on the conformity of it all! Did you know that God’s people have had a problem with this for thousands of years? Conforming that is. We’ve all tried to blend in for thousands of years.

It’s interesting that the Apostle Paul starts Romans 12:1 out with “sacrificing our bodies” and follows it with not conforming to the world. If you conform to the world, then you can’t sacrifice your body to God like 12:1 says to do. See that?

Paul says this because God’s people have always struggled with this.

Joshua 24:14-27. "So honor the LORD and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD alone. But if you are unwilling to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD."

This is a great verse, God is a jealous God, and he doesn’t want you serving other idols. But you do have a choice! You don’t have to serve the Lord…good luck with that though.

But Joshua said, "We will serve the LORD our God. We will obey him alone."

Choice is a dangerous thing but Commitment begins with choice. With my son I set a rule, “No Quitting!” One day, we were talking about playing football so I said to him, “Now you understand that if you do this, you can’t quit. If you don’t like it, that’s too bad. You have to stick it out. If you get hurt, I’m sorry, but you can’t quit.”

When Joshua asked the Israelite people to commit to God, he wasn’t talking about a week long commitment. He was talking about a lifelong commitment. When God asks us to commit to Him, he is asking us to commit with our whole lives.

In Hebrews 12, it speaks of running the race with endurance. Why would we need endurance if this was just a quick sprint? You need endurance for long races, not short sprints. While you are running this race of life, it is like a distance run and we need to have endurance. That means we are committing for more than just a few weeks or months. Commitment always starts with a choice. You have to choose what you’re going to be committed to. God or the world, those are your only 2 choices.

Everybody conforms to something in life. The question is what will it be? The answer to that question is up to you. I want to raise my son to know God. I want to raise him with the understanding that God is the most important person in the world to him, even more important than me.

There are so many things out there that are trying to get the family. Things that we don’t even recognize that are slowly taking our priorities off of God and putting them on other things. Commitment begins with a choice. But if your commitment is not taken seriously then it can lead to conformity and conformity leads us to spiritual adultery.

So I ask you….no beg you… Please choose one. Please don’t play the middle with God.

He cannot be fooled.

Like Mr. Miyagi says in the movie “Karate Kid”.

“Walk on left side of road, Okay.

Walk on right side, Okay.

Walk in the middle with God…SQUISH, just like grape!”