Once each of us held his body as the vehicle wherein his own will would be expressed. Once we each said in effect, “I am the captain of my body and it shall serve my pleasures.” Have we now surrendered it to Another, that it may serve His will and be used for His service and glory? We perform no really intelligent service for Him until we do this. We cannot be intelligent in the gospel without seeing that such a course is the only proper response.

Nonconformity to this world, or age, will mark us, inasmuch as we shall necessarily be conformed to the will of God. But God has His own way of bringing this about. Sometimes we see conformed Christians, sadly conformed to this age. Sometimes too we see reformed Christians, trying with a good deal of laborious effort to imitate Christ and do as He would do. What is set before us here is the transformed Christian, the transformation proceeding from the mind within to the body without.

Our verse does not speak of what God has done, or is doing, for us. It speaks of what we are to do. The responsibility is put upon us. We are not to be fashioned according to this age: we are to be transformed. Both these things, the negative and the positive, are to be worked out day by day. The renewing of our minds, and the transformation effected thereby, are not things accomplished in a moment once and for all, but something to be maintained and increased all through life.