Color Conformed...Or not

I know in a later post I had written about "fig leaves." This has continued to be a constant in my life.
I continue to try and prune the things out in my life that are not lovely.

What are you colors?

I think we should be constant. Unchangeable and unchanged throughout time. Think of a rainbow. The rainbow might appear to change slightly between each time you see it, but the colors are constant.
We paint the color of our fig leaves whatever our hearts desire at a certain time.  Yet, what are the colors that God has given us individually and specifically?
   
God made us humans for a reason. If we were meant to change our colors God would have made us chameleons. Don't get me wrong chameleons defiantly have it going on. (Humans are way more rad though.)

If the color thing is throwing you off, think of it in a different way.
What if we were always in a different mood? What if your moods were dependent upon the people around you.

Think of it this way.....
You get to school. You are in a happy "life is good" kind-of-mood. You bounce up the stairs and over to your locker. You are ready to have the most amazing day of your life. You see your friend. Your friend is in the Life-is-awful-Im-tired-kind-of mood. This deflates your little joy bubble immediately and you proceed to have an awful day. All because you let your friend's colors rub off onto yours. Great right? {actually...NO}

I have this long lasting theory that when He as on earth, Jesus was the coolest and most granola person ever. You know He loved just chilling at the coffee shop with His brothers and loving life and talking for hours.
    okay.....more like sitting in a field hanging out with the sheep and talking with His brothers. And feeding thousands of people and performing miracles in His free time. Equally cool if you ask me. My point is this..Jesus never changed. He was constant and unchangeable. 

 Why are we over emotional creatures? Why do we let other people contribute to the type of day that we have?

Fact: We are all going to have our share of rotten days.
Nonfact: The type of day we have depends on how our friends treated us or acted.

I want to shine my light. I have this uncanny and desperate desire to not be the same. I struggle with this desire. How funny right? It doesn't make sense to struggle with desiring my desire. Yet, it is real.
I want to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, but I want to be normal. Ha. yeah. I know.

Are we supposed to search for the happy-medium?

In the world, but not of the world.
 I search for this.

HOW?! What does this look like? How do I become this person that leads people to Jesus and shines so bright, yet I don't scare people away because I have this overly religions factor surrounding me, thus creating a scary looking "barrier" around my life?

"Therefore, I urge you...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God-this is your true and proper worship. Do NOT conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renowing of your mind." Romans 12:1-2

Okay so If you haven't heard those two verses then you are probably not a Christian. (TOTALLY KIDDING) My point is though, we hear this so much that I think it begins to lose its true meaning over time. Yet, is is so powerful it should only increase in meaning. 

I am currently doing a Romans 12 bible study with my family and it is so eye opening.

Okay. Let's look at this baby. 

"Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice." So this is where we get set our bodies aflame, run through the streets without any clothes on, and then proceed to jump off a cliff. But, if you don't feel comfortable doing this just yet, consider my next option. Living. We are alive, thus we are living. Sacrifice. We are sacrifice. We are to present our lives as a continual worship song to our Jesus. Every movement, thought, action should be glorifying to Christ. (convicting...)

Next part....

"Holy and pleasing....this is your..worship."      A roundabout definition of Holy is: Set apart. Therefore, if we are aiming for holiness then we should automatically be set apart from normality. 

Easy. hahah not really. The world looks so fun at time. But, look at the last part of that verse.

 "This Is...worship."

            Life is worship. 

Recently, I have found myself completely unsettled during worship time. I find my self making sure I don't sound like a drowning-cow. Even more, I find my self worshiping the song. Often times we sing these worship songs just as we would our favorite rock song. The only difference is that we might feel the necessity to raise our hands to make the song a worship song. How do we change this? Well, I am still trying to really answer this question fully for myself. My answer right now, however, would be this: You know the condition and motivations of your heart. You can only go from there. Our life is worship to Christ. (yet again...convicting) I need to make sure I want everything I do to count as worship to God. Because it does count. It counts even if we know God will forgive us for our actions. Paul talks about this very subject in Romans, but that is an entire other subject.

Let's finish this up.
"Do not be conformed...be transformed."
If we were to put this in modern day talk it would say something like....Do jump on the band-wagon! Be different because of your love for your Savior.
We cannot get on the band-wagon of life and ride it all day long. First, there probably isn't any more room on it for you because everyone is already on it. Second, just...come on.
We talked about this in Bible class a day or two ago....
Many people talk about the hypocrisy of the Church. There is hypocrisy is the church, as well as in my own very life.

Hypocrisy exists because of a lack of transformation and an excess of conformity. 

What does it take to be transformed? We should have moldable spirits; we should be willing to be lead even when it stings. Trust me, if you are doing it correctly you will feel the sting. (Totally worth it though) .       Transformation starts with a legitimate relationship with the Creator of the Universe. 

Side-note: As I continue to write on this blog I find myself becoming increasinly honest. I like it. I hope that my honesty shows you that you are not alone in this thing called life. I find myself being drawn to honest people. My goal for this blog is to bring glory to Jesus as I share what He is telling me to write as He teaches me how to do life. I thrive when people become honest, real, raw.

Life is hard. Yet, life is always so immensely wonderful I could shout till the sun sets..and then until it rises again. Life is a lot better when we do not conform, when we do not change out colors and when we do not hide behind the fig leaves we have constructed. Jesus is a rewarder and we will surely be reward for our life worship. Be brave for our reward is not on earth. Thank goodness, right? It seems the glory of earthy things quickly vanish...because they do.
This I know for certain, Jesus Joy does not ever leave my soul.

||  For this I praise Him  ||