Are you being changed?

One of my favorite translations of Romans 12:1-2 is found in The Message, by Eugene Peterson. He takes a familiar passage and makes me slow down and absorb the truth of what the Apostle Paul is saying here.

Today, I want you to sit with these two verses. Soak it up. Let it rattle around in your heart for a while…

“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.” (Romans 12:1-2 MSG)