Becoming Someone Else

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. (Romans 12:1-8 ESV).

At the age of 16, Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien took a long look at herself in the mirror and said: "Be miserable or become someone else." She set her sights on the music world, and later changed her name to Dusty Springfield. A string of hits including "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me" put her on the charts in the 1960s. In March 1999, she died of breast cancer 11 days before her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

"Be miserable or become someone else" is fundamentally a good philosophical point of view. Many of us have said something similar to ourselves. The problem is how to make it happen in a way that brings significant and lasting change for the better. Our most insightful looks in the mirror take us way beyond our outward appearance to who we are deep inside. That's where we need to be different.

Paul’s change is one of the most dramatic in the Bible. Those changes are at the root of his beginning of today’s verses. One paraphrase of the second verse says: "Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will learn from your own experience how His ways will really satisfy you" (The Living Bible). Behind every physical workout and facial makeover is the hope that we really can change. God says it can happen, but not on our terms. The first step in God's plan is to offer you unconditionally His presence to you. Then, as we walk in His grace and presence, He crafts us into the persons He created us to be. Trust in the completed work of Christ is the first step in becoming God's someone else. Today, commit yourself to being that someone different.