RENEW: To Transform, Be Transformed By God’s Mercy
Learn the ways God wants to spiritually transform us and build healthier connections by the renewal of our mind and body from what Saint Paul writes in Romans 12:1-5. A five day devotion series.
What kind of difference do you want to make in the world? Whatever it is, we must experience the changes in us first.
Just as physical disciplines of eating and exercising transform us, so do spiritual disciplines of praying and forgiving.
Learn the ways God wants to spiritually transform us and build healthier connections by the renewal of our mind and body from what Saint Paul writes in Romans 12:1-5.
Click here to access this YMCA devotional on the YouVersion Bible app or at bible.com
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
"To transform, we must be transformed."
This quote has continued to stir my spirit and renew my mindset since I first read it.
We were brainstorming for an inspirational quote to put on a YMCA staff t-shirt to shape our culture and keep reminding us of who we are trying to be as leaders.
I pitched a few ideas to my friend who'd given me this assignment, but they didn’t feel quite right. As we interacted with them, she suggested the brilliant “to transform” quote she'd gotten from another Y leader we both respected, based on a talk he gave inspired by Romans 12:1-2.
As leaders called to love, care and serve those in our organization and sphere of influence there is usually a transformative vision that emerges in our heart about who we could become together in all of this.
Eventually though, problems emerge amongst those we lead, and it becomes clear that it's not the complexity of the tactical or practical challenges we face, but our own spirits, minds, attitudes, perspectives, our harsh and unmerciful ego.
If we want to see transformation happen in spirits and mindsets, it has to start within us.
How? The invitation is given to leaders to see the world from a different point of view: first, can you see the mercy God has for you? Second, can you receive God’s mercy as a gift?
What is mercy?
For Christians we view it from the point of view of Jesus: empathy and kindness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Why does mercy matter so much? It sets people free to start over again; it’s also the heart of the gospel.
More than worship songs or prayers, we experience the favor of God when we embody mercy sacrificially with those around us; this is what we were set aside to do as Christians, this is our holy calling in this harsh, hurting, and vengeful world.
Experience shows us that mercy transforms the one who receives it as a gift and the one who gives it as such. Forgiveness as an act of mercy sets us free to start over again.
May you continue to live in view of God’s mercy: it’s the starting point for truly seeing one another with the eyes and heart of Jesus.
NOTES:
“Do not conform 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.”
"To transform, we must be transformed."
As a young leader, the son of a pastor, growing up in rural Ontario and small-town Michigan, there was an early love for the church, for growing spiritually, and for being wise. But I was impatient about it. Was there a way to hurry this up?
While in graduate school for my pastoral training, I came across this meaningful quote from Thomas Merton which revealed to me ways that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind: “How does an apple ripen? It just sits in the sun.”
What are you paying attention to? And when in the day do you ever get to just be?
The patterns of this world mercilessly press us to hurry up, to get to the end faster, to find more effective and efficient ways to get stuff done, which leads to more anxiety and worry, more uncertainty and insecurity about how it’s all going to turn out, less presence and more restlessness.
Even in this state of being, we can reach out to God to seek his will, to discern his desires for us, to pray for guidance, and what will we discover? That mercy is always part of the answer to that prayer.
The world is hard on humans, but mercy is how we participate in God’s pleasing and perfect will for our lives together.
What would be the most significant sign of a renewed mind transformed by God’s mercy?
First, forgiveness towards those who have sinned against us.
Second, withhold harm and refuse revenge, choosing not to punitively punish when the means and opportunity are available to us.
So how do we renew our mind and experience the transformation of God’s mercy in our life?
Like the apple in the sun, our soul ripens slowly when we are present, still, silent, and in solitude with the mercy-full Christ Jesus.
While the crushing pattern of this world presses us towards harboring shame and hurt feelings, we get to make radical choices of freedom: to receive the mercy God our Father has for us, trusting it to be true, and letting go of our unmerciful thoughts and ruminations, with the help of the Holy Spirit.
Pay attention to the ways mercy can renew your mind, freeing it from bitterness and resentment. Choose to be present, sitting in the mercy of the Son.
NOTES:
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.”
"To transform, we must be transformed."
The church my team helped start was in an old neighborhood just north of downtown Fort Wayne, a part of the city in transition. For fifty years, families had been moving out to the suburbs, home prices dropped, and the slow creep of brokenness marred all it touched.
As an aspiring pastor trying to make a difference, it was an easy temptation to think of myself as a better person because of how my life seemed compared to some who lived near the church.
Until I began to become more honest with myself, which was a form of grace, to see how many similarities we had in our thinking and faith.
I befriended in my church men and women for whom twelve-step programs were part of their transformation.
Part of their recovery was tied to how they thought about themselves, God, and those they had hurt.
The first four steps are a courageous way to begin the transformation of our mind, of embracing God’s grace for us, and living sacrificially:
“We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”
We know that God brings this kind of step-by-step transformation to fruition through people who are open to His Spirit. With God’s view of mercy, we can begin to see ourselves as we really are, a sobering judgment grounded in truth, in faith, in hope, and in love.
When we commit to friendship with like-minded women and men who also desire to participate in this reality, using sober judgment in their decisions, thinking of themselves from God’s point of view - with mercy – then we begin to experience the transformation we desire.
Mercy is a gift of grace, which requires us to want it, and trust that God will birth it in us, in his timing, his ways transforming us with friends in a caring community.
And when we find ourselves trusting God, tenderly accepting mercy, finding we have faith, even if it’s as small as a mustard seed, that too is a sign of Christ's healing grace to each of us.
NOTES:
“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.”
"To transform, we must be transformed."
Some things needed to change in my life last year. A friend shared with me how running had become a spiritual discipline for her, a way to pray and connect with God and do some inner work.
It inspired me to consider preparing to run a half-marathon again, it’d been many years, and though it seemed a daunting challenge, it also seemed doable. The self-discipline needed to prepare was the kind of change my life needed in spirit, mind and body.
A slow transformation unfolded in my life as the year went on, the half-marathon turned into a full marathon training. Had my friends not invited me into that challenge, and then continue to support me and check in regularly, I don’t know that I would have accomplished it.
One of those friends shared with me the inspiring speech from Coach Kara Lawson: “We all wait in life for things to get easier. It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better ... So make yourself a person that handles hard well.” This turned into a prayerful meditation for when the last few miles of the longest runs were wearing me out: “You can do hard things.”
What are some of the hard things that you need to do in your life? What is the transformation you are being challenged or invited to consider?
What’s keeping you from getting started?
What parts of your body are resisting the change?
What part of your spirit or mind are doubting and procrastinating?
Which friends are encouraging you with “You got this!” and which are holding you back or dragging you down?
Just as your different body parts need different kinds of care – nutrition, stretching, sleep, exercise, sunlight, play, etc, so your spirit and mind need different kinds of friendships and challenges.
When Christ places a call on you to be a living sacrifice in your community, he brings different kinds of friends around you to clarify and pursue that calling. He connects you to friends who you can be part of a community with you to fulfill that calling, come what may.
If you’re not sure where to get started, begin with re-connecting with friends sent to you by Christ Jesus – the One through whom we can see and receive the generous, overwhelming, mysterious mercy of God, which makes anything possible.
NOTES:
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
"To transform, we must be transformed."
One of the most beautiful, tender, and mysterious transformations in creation is the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly.
They are completely vulnerable and defenseless in their chrysalis, and once they emerge, it is still a while before their wings mature enough for them to fly away.
It is a challenge for naturalists to observe the actual transformation of the caterpillar, but there seem to be some elements of the butterfly within it before it forms the chrysalis.
They shed their skin several times while eating leaves and growing to full length before the final transformation.
Attaching to a branch with some silk, they finally shed their skin to form the chrysalis within which it “disintegrates” to almost an ooze-like body.
Within the safety of its own hard-skinned chrysalis, the cellular transformation occurs, the tubular form of the caterpillar becoming the slim-winged insect marked by bright colors and nectar-slurping skills.
There is only one other creature that goes under a more beautiful, tender, mysterious transformation: a hurting human upon whom the mysterious mercy of God embraces in a vulnerable chrysalis of reconciling and healing grace.
Like the butterfly, we can’t look inside the soul of a woman or man undergoing transformation, but we can often see the chrysalis-like circumstances hardening around them: suffering, troubles, pain, difficulties, agony, and tears.
To experience mercy is to be touched by a beautiful and tender mystery, and to try and put words to it requires great art: poetry, song, testimony, long healing embraces.
Saint Paul was inviting the Roman Christians to be transformed by the renewing of their mind and spirit by keeping God’s mercy in full view. Eventually, the Christians of Rome would endure persecutions and plagues, slander and starvation, civil war and barbarian hordes, the sacking of the city, and the decline of the empire.
Through it, Christians transformed all they touched when it was done in vulnerable and courageous mercy, sifting through rubble and ruin to give witness to their own metamorphosis by how they cared for the broken and neglected.
This is still how it is today: a mystery of mercy when Christians emerge from their hardships to beautifully and tenderly love, serve, and care for all whom God brings into their life.
We trust that Jesus Christ transforms us all through mercy; may we go and do likewise.
NOTES:
Devotion written by Tim Hallman, Christian Emphasis Director, YMCA of Greater Fort Wayne, Spring 2025; available on the YouVersion app or at bible.com, for all plans, search “YMCA”
For a print copy contact tim_hallman@fwymca.org