I found my old CD cases, which are a fascinating time capsule into the music I used to listen to 20 years ago when I was actively buying CDs. I've got a CD player in my car that has presented the opportunity for nostalgia every time I drive down to Cincinnati or out to some rural Ohio business. It's fantastic, and it's also a reminder as to how much life has changed. I'm not the same person I was 20 years ago, but I really did have some great taste in music back then! When I think about presenting myself as a living sacrifice, that means something different today than it used to. 15 years ago or 15 months ago, I was a different person, and sacrificing different things.
Part of the amazing reality of Christianity is that it evolves and grows as we grow -- we find additional depth in the Word of God. As we encounter all the various joys and challenges of life, we find new facets of faith that we hadn't thought about before, and the Holy Spirit encourages us to lean into faith, to sacrifice differently. The old saying I quote whenever I read this passage is that the problem with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar! We're never the same, and we come back, time and time again, to be comforted and challenged and encouraged and embraced.
We also see the amazing reality that Christianity has something relevant to say to modern America. What Jesus taught in 1st century Jerusalem is applicable to daily life. We present our bodies and renew our minds, and it's all offered to God. It matters how we surf the internet and what we watch on television -- this is part of our spirituality. Faith doesn't shrink, but we change and wear the cloth of Christianity in different ways. So may we give thanks for the gift of a relevant faith and a God that cares about us just as much today and God cared about us a decade ago, and that love will stretch on forever into eternity, long after the sun has worn itself out and the oceans have ceased to crash on the shore. Thanks be to God!
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