Transformed

Read Romans 12:1-2

Who are you?

The world says that you are 5’10” with blonde hair, slightly overweight, sunburned, and well dressed.

Maybe 6’1”, bald, but in need of a haircut, skinny as a rail, and dressed for winter as a homeless person.

Maybe you’re the guy with the 2019 Porsche.  Can’t remember what you look like, but you’ve got a nice car.

The world will size you up by the world’s measures and standards.  So is that who you are?  If I have to describe you to the police sketch artist, that’s probably how it will come out.

If I do have to describe you to the sketch artist, I might just go a different route.  

She is fearfully and wonderfully made.

He is completely loved by God.  I’m not talking 99 and 44/100ths loved.  I am talking 100% loved by God.

She is the salt of the earth.  He is the light of the world.

These people were worth dying for.  The blood of Jesus was shed for them.  God created in him a pure heart. 

These are the people who don’t’ stumble because they have God’s word as a lamp unto their feet.

She is created in the image of God and being made into the image and likeness of Christ.

When the police sketch artists asks me if I could give them something more useful, I’ll reply:  Well, I could give you their name and address, but where’s the fun in that?

Who are we?  Does it depend on whether we throw on a shave that day?  Are we the clothes we wear?  Are we our intellect or our physique?

Are we the degrees and titles that we hold?  Are we the cars that we drive or the investments that we own?

Anyone every try Kimchi? It’s fermented cabbage.  The traditional stuff is put into a container in the ground and taken out just when the Kimchi Master decides it’s fit for human consumption.  If you have never tried, don’t’ be afraid.

It will give you a new identity.  For the two weeks following your Kimchi meal, you will become known as Kimchi Breath.  No amount of mouthwash can change that.  No breath mint can alter your new identity.

We have an identity.  It is love.  We belong to the Christ and we are to be known by our love.  That’s from John’s gospel.  Paul very much parallels these thoughts on love.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.  Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.  Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.  Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone.  If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.  Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord.

Jesus said, “They will know you are Christians—my disciples—by your love.”  We have talked about love for half a year.  We have a church motto that is GOD’S LOVE IN ACTION.  We believe that we have great fidelity to that motto.  It’s not like we came up with it out of thin air.

In everything that we do, we must be motivated by love.  We must continue our journey to become love as Christ is Love.  If there is vengeance or retribution due to another person, we trust God with all of our hearts and do not lean on our own understanding that justice will be satisfied.

All of these things are so easy to do because that’s how we have always lived.  Well, not exactly!

Even if we were brought up in the way that we should go since birth, the world taught us a lot.  Hate and prejudice, selfishness and overindulgence, and of course the It’s all about me way of thinking came out of our worldly mentors.

But we are not content to remain that way.  God is not content to leave us that way.  His Spirit is always at work in us.

We are charged to move this transformation along as well.  We have a part.  This is discipleship.  We are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

We pray with much listening.  We read our Bibles anticipating that God’s own Spirit will illuminate these living and active words.  We put these words into action.

God’s Spirit is working with us as we listen, read, meditate upon God’s holy word, and take what is in our minds and put it into practice.

We are making our minds new.  Out with what the world says.  In with what God says.  It is surely a trust in the Lord with all of your heart exercise that we should engage in daily.  Our own understanding replaced with God’s wisdom and love.

We are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind; yet, this is not an academic exercise.  For our mind to be renewed we must put these words of our Master into practice.  Otherwise, we are just thinking about thinking his way.  We perform the finest functions of metacognition without the essential element of trusting fully in him and thereby never seem to get around to putting his words into practice.

We are hardly transformed if we can’t convince ourselves to do what the Lord requires.  But to the one who has been transformed by the renewing of the mind:

We trust fully in God when we set aside our own understanding and put his words into practice, and without hedging our bet.

Sometimes this is simply a cup of cold water or a meal for someone in need.

Sometimes it is speaking the truth in love.

Sometimes it is much more.

All the time we will know what we are to do.  How is this possible?

Listen to Paul’s words once again.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We will be able to know, and test, and embrace what God wants us to do—the good and pleasing and perfect things that he wants us to do.  And it is all so easy.  Well, sort of…

My yoke is easy and my burden is light does not mean that suddenly life becomes free of conflict.  It does mean that what Christ calls us to do is not such a heavy burden that we should be afraid of it.  And it does get easier the more we put his words into practice.  Which brings us to wind sprints.

I have shared this analogy with some of you before, but I had to run them so you get to hear about them again.

Once upon a time, I was going into my sophomore year in Mangum, Oklahoma.  We had arrived in the Mangum area from Texas about a week before, just in time for summer two-a-days.  Those were the days.  A gulp of water and 14 salt tablets and back to the practice field you went.  That was sports medicine in the 1970’s.

We lived out in the country on a farm that we had bought years before and now we had come to live on it,  and I was sure that nobody knew me except the guys on the football team, but out of the blue, I got a phone call from the girl that lived a quarter of a mile down the road asking me if I would go with her to the dance.

I didn’t even know there was a dance.  I had played baseball the summer before in Texas, didn’t have a summer job other than two-a-days, so I didn’t really have any money.  I didn’t have a license, was pretty sure I didn’t know how to dance, and did not have my own car.  Considering all of these things, I said yes!

I had to confess that I didn’t have a car.  Her reply was, “Oh my mother wouldn’t let you take me by yourself anyway.”  That part of the logistics was settled, and I was wondering if I had a reputation before I had my first date here in Oklahoma.

Her mother probably just didn’t want to see us as episode 15 on 13 Reasons Why some 40 years later.  In any case, I had a date for Friday.

Friday came and her mom got us to the dance.  When the music started, I looked around at the other people making strange contortions on the dance floor and decided I could dance too.  Here are some other facts of interest.

The dance ended at 11:30 pm

Football curfew was 11:00 pm

My football coach was also the faculty chaperone for the dance.

My date’s mom came to pick us up at midnight.

Come Monday, at the end practice which was always wind sprints and all the gut-wrenching sounds that go with that exercise, my coach called out, “All dancers back on the wind sprint line.”  Nobody knew what he was talking about, well, except for me.

So, while everyone else was getting some water and another dozen salt tabs, I was doing wind sprints.  I was exhausted before the regular winds sprints.  Now I had more.

After half a dozen 40-yard sprints, my coach imparted a little wisdom.  “A horse will run until it kills itself.  You will pass out first.”  Now there’s some reassurance.

I set my mind on finding out if I would die or pass out and ran the next sprint as hard as I could, and lived.  I did the next one the same way.  And the next one and the next one.

And at the next practice when it came time for regular wind sprints, I was yards ahead of everyone on the line.   I played tackle, end, and linebacker so that’s where I ran my sprints.  After a few sprints, I slyly switched over to running with the backs and outran all but one.

These were guys that half of them could outrun me before practice.  When we all had nothing left, I left them in the dust.  By the end of the week, I outran them all.

When the last sprint was done, I wanted one more!  Just one more, just one more wind sprint.

I had been transformed from a kid that dreaded these end of practice rituals to an athlete that looked for challenge after challenge.  A lot can happen when a girl asks you out on a date.

The prescribed analogies for transformation direct us to the root word of metamorphosis which is μεταμορφόω  (met-am-or-fo'-o) and the example of the caterpillar and butterfly.  It’s a good example, but we have example after example that we see in our own lives and the lives of our children and those in the community.

I was privileged to witness a type of large-scale metamorphosis as a series commander at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, Parris Island, South Carolina.  To watch a bunch of—I’m sure that even this term is politically incorrect in some circles now—a bunch of momma’s boys be transformed into United States Marines was a sight that I observed every 13 weeks for about 3 years.

I witnessed many a young man who didn’t have a clue what was happening in the moment much less in his life, be transformed into a person of character and purpose and selflessness.

I have observed many inmate clients come to my office door, knock, have a momentary epiphany, and say, “You are going to ask me if I get what I want, will it get me any closer to my goal?”  They walked away having counseled themselves.

I spent a lot of time talking to inmate clients about efficacy.  Efficacy is the power to effect desired change.  Self-efficacy is the power to effect desired change in ourselves.  Understanding efficacy is powerful in itself.

We have the ability to transform ourselves into something better.  With God, we can be transformed into the image and likeness of Christ Jesus.  By renewing our minds, we can accelerate the process.

God is already at work on us.  We are being transformed.  Some of us are fighting the process.  Once we accept that we grow in God’s grace and are being transformed, we begin to see God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Once upon a time, wind sprints didn’t seem as tough as they used to be.  In this time that we live in now, the more we seek this transformation, the more we desire the next step in the process.

Having embraced the transformation process, we are ready to serve God in everything that we do.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

We are ready to be who God wants us to be.  We offer ourselves—everything that makes us who we are—to be a living sacrifice to God.  Our very lives—how we live—is our sacrifice and service and pleasing offering to God.

We are being transformed.

We are growing in God’s grace.

We are being made into the image and likeness of Christ Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God.

We are turning away from the ways of sin and the ways of the world and sprinting towards the ways of God.

We do this trusting fully in him and not our own understanding.

Have you ever walked into one of those hair places where the styles are in pictures on the wall or they have a book that they give you to pick from?  All you have to do is say, “Make me look like that.”

I tried that once.  I was told, “Sir, you don’t have enough hair for any of these.”

But the God of all creation doesn’t care about my hairstyle, clothing, or the car that I drive.  He sees my heart and says, “Let’s make your heart just like mine.”

He says, let’s do this transformation thing!  Renew your mind.

Study my word.  Listen to me when you pray.  Put my words into practice.

Be transformed!

God loved us exactly where he found us, but he loves us so much he will not leave us there.

Be transformed by the renewing of your mind!

Amen.

Discipleship--Romans 12 Style

Read Romans 12

How we respond to God’s infinite mercy is our discipleship.  We sing I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.  Do we know what we are saying when we sing?

Do we understand that our response to mercy and grace is our discipleship?  Having been rescued from sin and death by the love of God, what will we do?

Paul concluded this 12^th chapter by saying, don’t let evil get the best of you.  Overcome evil with good.  That’s a good executive summary but there is a whole bunch packed into the intervening 20 verses.

Let’s start unpacking.  We won’t even get through the first sentence before we need to stop.  Here are three things right from the start:

·     Therefore

·     In view of God’s great mercy

·     I urge you

Therefore tells us that there was something before.  It could simply refer to the fact that all who come to know God will come the same way, by his mercy; but more than likely it means considering everything that has been said up to this point—in the previous 11 chapters—something will follow that connects to it.  This seems logical because Paul in the next few words addresses God’s mercy directly.

In view of God’s mercy is a condition we should consider in what is to follow.  Considering that we fell short, couldn’t fix ourselves, were under God’s condemnation and wrath in that state, but God did everything that had to be done to make us right with him—he chose mercy for us—then shouldn’t we have an appropriate response to such great mercy?

I urge you is a personal appeal.  Paul used plenty of expository appeals along the way.  He uses analysis and builds his argument with his prose much of the time, but this time it’s personal.  I urge you!  Paul wants this to be a personal challenge to his readers.  He is saying, with my whole being I beckon you to respond to the grace and mercy that you know in Christ Jesus.  God loves you more than you can comprehend.  Do something about it.  Respond.

How do I respond?  Let’s finish the sentence.

Offer your bodies as living sacrifices to God.  Your whole life should be holy and pleasing to God.  Everything you do should bring glory to God.  It is as simple as Jesus paid it all.  All to him I owe.

How do we pay this debt?  With our entire lives—with everything that we are.

In the Old Testament, the only sacrifice that got to live was the scape goat, and it got dumped in the desert with a year’s worth of sins to carry around.  For the rest of the warm blooded animals lined up for sacrifice, their time as a living thing ended at the altar.

Those sort of sacrifices are no longer needed.  The blood of Jesus was a once and for all sacrifice for sin. Now our everything is to be given to God and in this sacrifice we find life.  Paul didn’t know what an oxymoron was but he surely wanted to get people’s attention with this unique combination of words.

In one sense, the words don’t go together.  The sacrifice by definition does get to live.  But in sacrificing our entire lives to God, we finally come to know life in the full.

And we haven’t even finished the sentence.  This response is our spiritual act of worship, reasonable act of service, true worship—the only acceptable response to love so great is everything that we are.

Are bodies are a living sacrifice, but we respond mind and body.  The second verse is as full as the first.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world any longer tells us that we have already been conformed to the world to some extent.  The words any longer tells us to put the brakes on.

Up to a point, the world has shaped all of us.  We are the clay but in many ways the world has been the potter.  The patterns of the world have shaped our lives.  Some of those patterns are tolerable.  When you are driving on the interstate, get in a lane and stay in it.  Quit texting and roaming across 3 lanes.

Do not conform to the patterns of the world does not mean drive in the pasture instead of on the highway.  Sometimes if my GPS does not have the updates for a new segment of highway or interchange, it shows me driving across open country or a body of water.

Paul is saying what the proverbs said centuries before.  There is God’s way and there is everything else.  Enough with the everything else.  We will do this God’s way.

We seek his kingdom and his righteousness and that means turning away the things of this world that want mastery of your life.  We have one Lord and he alone is our Master.  We can’t serve two, if we find that there is someone or something in this world that calls us to serve him or it, turn away.

Turn away.  The patterns of the world that want to be our master don’t get our loyalty or attendance or support.  They don’t get to mold us anymore.

So we put the brakes on and do a 180 degree turn.  We don’t let the wrong potter mold us.  Great metaphors, but how do we do that?

It begins in our minds.  We begin with wherever we are and become transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Transformation is a process.

Salvation may come in an instant but transformation is a process.  I am getting out of my car an onto my tractor for my next metaphor.

Visualize a plowed field before anything has been planted—row after row of plowed sandy loam and clay just waiting to blow into Kansas.  If it rains, the water that doesn’t soak in will run off, mostly down the rows, occasionally breaking over a row as contour and gravity have a little dance. 

Sometimes it makes a rut—not a row but a rut cut out by the water itself.  If the field doesn’t get reworked before the next rain, the water will go the same way and the rut will get deeper.  Rain will follow existing patterns.

For that to change, the farmer has to get back on his tractor again.  He might have to break out a blade and reshape the contours and terraces.

Our mind uses patterns.  When our mind gets new information, it automatically tries to fit it into an existing pattern.  That’s the way the mind works.  For many things it is absolutely wonderful.  To undergo a transformation, it takes a very concerted and deliberate effort.

We must renew our minds.  We must plow the field again ready to receive a new pattern—a new way.  We have to change not only the way we think, but we must manage the information that comes into our minds.

If it doesn’t belong, don’t let it in. 

But what about that stay thought that just showed up?  I don’t know how.  It just popped into my mind.

What do I do?  Kick it to the curb.  Elsewhere Paul would say capture it and if it is hostile to the Lord get rid of it.

  Take it captive.  Don’t give it freedom to roam among the other good thoughts going about their business in our brain housing groups.

Wow!  Gotta love all the metaphors and analogies but I need some nuts and bolts.  Here are some nuts and bolts:

·     Come with a teachable spirit.  You must want God to plow the entire field.

·     Read your Bible.  That’s more than the verse of the day.

·     Study your Bible.  Think of Bloom’s Taxonomy or variations thereof.

o  Knowledge—I know what it says and can generally remember it.

o  Comprehension—I understand what it says.

o  Application—I can do what it says.

o  Analysis—I can make connections, see relationships, identify categories.

o  Synthesis—I can break it down and put it back together again.  I can write a midrash.

o  Evaluation—This is not a test as we often think.  I can find the value in what I have learned.

·     Meditate upon God’s word.  That can be the verse of the day.  This is different than study.

·     Engage fellow believers in growing in God’s word.  As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

·     Listen during prayer.

·     Find a time to be still—not just silent—still.  Just be in God’s presence.

Then you will start to realize transformation through the renewing of your mind.  If nothing seems to be happening, go back to the first step.  Come with a teachable spirit.

We are almost through the first two verses.  Do these things and you will begin to see what God has in store for you.  We like to say what God’s will is.

We sometimes use not knowing what God’s will is or what he has in store for us as an excuse to do nothing.  We feign the words, “I sure wish that God would reveal his will to me.  I sure wish he would tell me what he wants me to do.”

If we want to know what God’s will is, Paul says here is what you do.  Give your whole life to God and renew your mind, then you will know what God’s will is.

Sometimes we think, what if I get the sorry end of the stick in God’s will?   Then we need to understand that God’s will is good, pleasing, and perfect.  We need to stop asking questions formed by the patterns of the world and accept that God’s will is good, pleasing, and perfect.

The third verse you have heard throughout Paul’s epistles. You have nothing to boast in other than Christ.  You don’t need to get puffed up or claim victory on your own. 

Sober up!  Engage a sound mind.  Sing Jesus Paid It All.  Even the measure of faith that brings us to the salvation that initiates this thing called discipleship came from God.  In this thing called discipleship we are to judge ourselves knowing that God has given us both faith and gifts. 

We are sober—of a sound mind if you will—and ask, “What am I doing with what God has given me?”

Get ready to set your dictionary aside and read in context.  Paul will use the terms faith and grace in multiple contexts.  If you look up grace in the theological dictionaries you will find something along the order of unmerited forgiveness from God. 

That’s a good definition, but grace does not restrict itself to that definition.  In the grace we have received we find that God’s favor is poured out upon us beyond being saved from sin and death.  We have gifts that come from God that are realized in his grace and manifested as we act upon the faith we have been given.

You might be thinking that this explanation doesn’t make things any clearer. Let’s break it down.

Grace is big!  It is more than just a get out of hell free thing.  It is about being free to live the life God has wanted for us since before we knew we existed.  Grace is big!

With our salvation, God gave us gifts.  He’s like that.  Giving is his thing and he is good at it.  Our gifts produce fruit only when we use them. But he has equipped us to use them.

Paul includes a familiar discussion and analogy.  We are one body and have many functions.  That’s the way our human body works and Paul says that’s the way the body of believers work as well.  And we are specially equipped with gifts from God. 

Paul enumerates:  prophecy, service, teaching, encouraging, helping others, and giving.  He could have continued.  This list is not to the exclusion of other lists.  His intent was not to make a list of all of the gifts that God gives with his grace.

His intent was to tell believers that discipleship requires those who have received faith and gifts to use them.  If God gave you the gift of encouraging, take the measure of faith that you have and use the gift.

You don’t need anything else to put the gift to use.  You have the faith.  You have the gift.  Use it!

What if I don’t know what my gift is?  Find out!

I will go a little further here.  You already know what your gift is or gifts are.  God’s Spirit that resides within you has been telling you.  If you don’t know then take some Be still time.  Start listening. 

Stop listening to the expectations set by the patterns of the world and listen to the Spirit that lives within you.  Then take the measure of faith you have been given and put the gift to work.

I left one off of Paul’s list:  mercy.  I don’t know that I have the spiritual gift of mercy but I am called to practice mercy several times a week, and Paul’s note on mercy hit home.  Do it cheerfully.

There has to be a Burns Flat exception to that counsel.  Time and time again I talk with people when their lives have become unmanageable because of a series of bad decisions and they need help.  After some conversation, I find that they don’t really want to change the way they live they just need someone to help pay their bill.

You might think that a semester or two at the school of hard knocks might be the best course of action but what about the 3 or 4 or 8 kids in the household that will be taking cold baths at least until the water is cut off too.

Sometimes, I just have to pray to God to help me fake being cheerful.  He doesn’t grant that request.

Love must be sincere.  It must be genuine.  I am permitted no dissonance between mercy and joy.  I can’t grit my teeth and be cheerful at the same time.

Does that mean that I don’t speak the truth in love?  

Absolutely not.  I am to hate evil and hold tightly to what is good.  In me that translates to passion towards God’s ways.

Some probably put me in the permanent nut case category after I spent a year preaching the Proverbs.  I did not get this classification because I preached proverbs but because they brought out a passion in me.

There is God’s way and there is everything else!

How can I be cheerful in being merciful to someone who surely doesn’t deserve anything?  It’s God’s way and that’s how I want to live.  That’s discipleship.

That’s responding to God’s great love that we did not deserve.  Now as followers of Jesus—disciples—we look out for each other in every way.  We honor and value and respect each other more than we have ever done before.

Here’s one that I want you to put in your lexicon of oxymorons:  Lukewarm disciple.    You might think that there are a lot of those, but such a person should not exist.

In response to God’s great love and mercy, we are to respond passionately—with zeal.  We are on fire for Christ.

Here’s a term for you—On fire Christian.  It is not an oxymoron.  It should be a redundant term—on fire and Christian.  Some people think that being on fire for Christ means jumping up and down with your hands raised high and they don’t’ want any part of it.

That’s exactly what being on fire for Christ is for those people.  For me, I am equally combustible for Christ with both feet on the ground.  My passion for him often manifests itself in my writing, my preaching, and my service.

What are some symptoms of being an on fire and zealous follower of Christ?

·     Being joyful in hope

·     Patient in affliction

·     Faithful in prayer

·     Caring and sharing with fellow believers

·     Hospitality

Once upon a time I wrote an article called Metrics for Christians.  I had a little fun postulating how we could measure our discipleship.  You have to have metrics, right?

How about attendance?  Surely that had to be one.  I even offered that people out to get extra credit for staying awake during the sermon.

Knowing the words to the songs.  That has to count.

Keeping both eyes closed during the prayer.

Of course the tithe.  Yes, it is 10% off the top.  Max points for strict adherence.  Extra points for giving beyond the tithe.

The list went on.  I don’t remember how many I put out there to bait the reader.  Those who did not know me probably wondered if I was serious or not.  Then out of the blue, I added:  Love you enemy.

Love your enemy.  Now there’s a truth teller.  What’s the point of having an enemy if you can’t hate them?  Note that Jesus was not telling his disciples to love “the enemy”, but those people who just don’t like us.

So Paul throws in a little graduate level discipleship here in this 12^th chapter as well.  Bless those who persecute you.  Bless and do not curse.

I can get motivated about being a living sacrifice.  I can sing All to Jesus I surrender.  All to him I freely give.  I can sing it.

I love the thought and process of renewing my mind.  Digging into God’s word, listening to what he has to say when I convince my whole being to be still, and taking my faith and my gifts and getting after it is just cool beans.

But this bless those who persecute you—there should be other options.  How about I wring your neck and throw your funeral in for free as an act of compassion?  That could work.

But what I want—or think that I want in my mind still conforms to the patterns of this world—and is not the good and pleasing and perfect will of God.

My whole life is given as a sacrifice to God.  I willing surrender my will to his, especially in view of the undeserved mercy that I have received and now live in.  So as joyfully as I share with the body of believers, I need to want my enemies to know that same joy.

I have decided to follow Jesus.  I will not repay evil for evil.

I will even go so far as to consider the thoughts and opinions of others who do not believe and probably don’t like me very much and do my best to live in harmony with them.

I will not compromise being a living sacrifice and re-plowing my mind to receive the mind God has for me, so I will fully trust God to deal with the wicked.  If he wanted me to do it, he would have put it in my commission.

Maybe, just maybe, in being God’s love by meeting some basic needs in those who pretty much hate me, they won’t be able to sleep until they figure out what is going on with this crazy Jesus follower.

Maybe, somewhere in the discord that my mercy and compassion creates in their world-ordered life, their hearts will break and they will receive the Holy Spirit.

That’s knowing God’s good, pleasing, and perfect will and letting it have its way in my life.

And we come to the end of this very packed chapter on discipleship and this final statement.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

So what do we say?

It’s all yours.  My life is yours.  My mind is yours.  Plow my field.  I will take my gifts and leverage them with the measure of faith that you have given and produce good fruit.

I live for and in your will—your good, pleasing, and perfect will; and in so doing I will overcome evil with good.

Amen.