He who believes trusts. Trusting God changes everything. It can change our view of this world, just as a relationship with a person changes your view of the world. It doesn’t have to be infatuation if the encounter with another person gives us like wings. What can we think about? Sense-making, for example, or outlook, connectedness and gratitude. Relationships can expand our horizons, create a foundation for our lives. However, it can also be a challenge. As in real life, it is up to each person to create a relationship. Let’s pay attention. The same is true for trust in God and faith.

Faith is fragile

Talk of a relationship with God is central to many beliefs. This idea is not exclusive to evangelicals. It’s not even exclusive to Christians. We cannot say that other people have succumbed to projection while we ourselves are living the “real” relationship. There is not much evidence to “prove” such superiority. One can also ask oneself if being a Christian is a “projection”. Many people see it that way and leave the Christian world because they think Christianity is just a projection.

In this post, we’ll talk a little bit about projections and what we can contrast that with – with all the uncertainty about last things. Because one thing is clear: There is much we do not know, but merely trust. I “have” nothing, but I am still rich. We are, according to Paul, “blessed with every spiritual blessing.” This is spiritual, that is, intangible. The apostle also writes that this blessing is “in the midst of those who are above in Christ” (Eph 1:3). Spiritual blessing, therefore, is not only “not palpable or visible,” but it is not even in us. This blessing is “in Christ” whom we cannot see and who is not here. It is surprising that this is not emphasized much more often. Faith is confused by not few with feeling, or it lives the expectation that everything immediately turns to the best here on this world. However, all this is not true. We have spiritual blessings and are still waiting for a fulfillment (Eph 1:13-14; Rom 8:22-26).

The point I am trying to make is simple: there is nothing that is within us. This is consistent with both our own experience and the Bible. The Bible is sober. In comparison, many religious ideas seem completely out of touch. I would even argue that the Bible is not religious, even though religiosity is described in it. A good distinction can be made between the two. The value of religiosity is limited when we ask about God (“God is not religious”).

So when Paul writes that we are blessed “with every spiritual blessing in the midst of those who are above in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), he is saying two things:

1. Yes, we are blessed – spiritually (intangible)
2. No, it is not in us – but in Christ (again, intangible).

Such a spiritual blessing is no less real because it is not visible or palpable. That’s an amazing thing about us humans – we imagine many things. This is how we work. Therefore, we can also deal with such statements of Paul. Even if “nothing is in us,” but everything is “in Christ,” we are not poor as a result. There is richness in it, even if it is not palpable. This is the power of proclamation. This is the power of the spirit. This is how faith works in this world – through spirit. And this is not hocus-pocus, but human experience. It is that which happens in encounter, or that which expresses itself in encounter.

Is this now projection? Maybe, but so do we in many other things. Projection is not wrong by definition. Therefore, it is not correct to say that “projection-free” would be closer to the truth. Let us think, for example, of Paul’s statements in Romans 6, in which he speaks of the fact that we must “reckon” with some things (Rom 6:11). Projection – properly understood – can give direction to our thinking. This aspect is positive, even if false projections abound.

In another comparison, one could distinguish:

• Faith is not what I “have”, but rather
• Faith is what I “become” because it wants to be alive and lived in every moment.
• Faith does not speak of me, but of the one I trust.

“Faith” is spiritual and has to do with spiritual blessings. This is how Paul wrote it in Ephesians 1:3. We can be aware of what this means for our life of faith. Above all, it is limited: We can hardly explain a relationship with God, but only live it out. We have nothing to “show off” except ourselves and what we do. By the way, this is exactly the same as in human relationships. We can only live out friendships, partnerships, marriages, only create day by day, so that the relationship gets “hand and foot”. It is all fragile, invisible, but can certainly gain an expression in this world.

Everyday challenge

How does it live in everyday life? How does it feel in everyday life? That is shaped by our assumptions about that belief. When people “cease to believe,” they have often merely departed from a particular understanding of faith. One has left a subculture. After all, who can claim to understand everything? This is no less true for unbelief than for faith. What they understood was no longer credible. The understanding was not compatible with everyday life and one’s own experience. I think that often these are not conscious decisions, but rather unconscious reactions. That is the challenge in everyday life.

How we understand our faith is not “given” or “always the same.” It is an imprint. We can do something with it. He who trusts believes. Faith and trust are identical in the languages of the Bible. I trust someone. However, this wants to be lived out, otherwise it is not alive. Our own understanding of faith can get in the way of a healthy faith. That’s why it’s important to be clear about your own belief assumptions. What shapes me and why?

Relationship or spirit is not in me or in the other, Martin Buber writes, but it is spirit that is between two persons (“Spirit is not in the I, but between I and Thou.”, Martin Buber, from: I and Thou). In other words, it is not palpable, and lives only from interaction. Comparable to the fact that electricity must flow through the light bulb in order for light to be produced. Light does not exist without the other two.

Many people, whether they believe in my sense and understanding or not, report a basic trust with which they stand in life. That’s nice. However, I have also met many Christians who have never been able to build such a basic trust out of the most difficult situations. This not infrequently carries over to the relationship with God. They also often experience insecurities in their relationship with God. An evangelical environment can then be like poison to the wound. A doctrine of hell promotes these insecurities. Sometimes congregations are the places where uncertainty spreads, where “uncertainty of salvation” is a regular theme.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Everyday life can be far better characterized.

The renewal of our thinking

In this series on the Letter to the Romans, we have arrived at chapter 12. The doctrinal part is finished and Paul talks about the impact of this gospel. Chapters 12-16 are not about doctrine, but about lifestyle. It’s about daily practice.

“I now pronounce you, brothers (…), to provide your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God (…) and not to adjust yourselves to this eon, but to let yourselves be transformed by the Renew your minds so that you may be able to discern what is the will of God – the good, pleasing, and perfect will.”
Rom 12:1-2

Paul’s encouragement was because of what was foretold. What he explains here builds on the gospel. It is to be the effect of the proclamation. Already we talked about the first verse, wherein he emphasizes that we should provide our bodies (!). That is the connection to this world. That’s where what we believe becomes concrete. The activity is “providing”, which presupposes the attitude of “willingness”. What we do that should come from the thinking of which the attitude is an expression.

The second point he mentions is the antithesis. We should “not adjust to this eon.” The word eon means age. In some translations it is regularly translated as “eternity” – but here mostly not. Let us keep in mind that it is never a matter of eternity, but of a long time, with a certain imprint (cf. Eph. 2:2 “eon of this world”). When Paul admonishes the Romans to “not set your mind on this eon,” it means that the coinage of this eon is not for us. What should we do? We should not adjust to “this”, but to “that”. We should choose what is important to us, what has meaning.

What is in the world is often presented as a contrast to the believer’s experience. For example, John speaks:

“Do not love the world, nor what is in the world.
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, since everything in the world,
1. The lust of the flesh,
2. the desire of the eyes and
3. the courtliness of the way of life,
is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world, together with its desire, passes by.
But he who does the will of God abides for the eon.”
1Joh 1,15-17

John here presents the world as a collective term for a worldview and for a value system. Salopp formulated one could recognize these things also as “Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll”. He speaks of an attitude towards life that is characterized by covetousness and pride. This is typical for the world we live in. But these things, John said, are passing. He therefore recommends focusing on what is permanent and lasting. For that will be saved over into the future eon (“But he who does the will of God abides for the eon,” cf. Mark 10:30 and others). Thus, similar things are found both in Jesus and the Twelve (the church from Israel) and in Paul (the church from the nations).

Paul’s exhortation in Romans is therefore noteworthy. He is not saying that we should go out of the world. However, we should not adjust to this world. The revised Elberfelder translation writes here: “And be not conformed to this world”. The Greek suschematizo in this passage has to do with “scheme,” which means that we should not form a scheme together with the world. Because the character of this world should not have to be our character.

Paul does not mean that we should fight against the world, but we should just leave the scheme to the left, not get involved in it. We should choose a different scheme. This is what the Gospel is meant to enable us to do. Instead of a dependency now comes the freedom of one’s own decision. But for this to succeed, a renewal of our thinking is necessary. Because thinking is where action begins.

Do not tune into this eon

The apostle outlined the context as follows:

“And not to adjust yourselves to this eon, but tobetransformed by the renewal of your mind“.

Logically, we all live “now”. We live in “this eon. Having our focus there is necessary for practical considerations, but it is also a focus that leads nowhere. The Gospel speaks of a wider horizon. Such a statement was part of the expectation.

In the Gospels, Jesus already spoke of the coming Kingdom of Heaven, long since spoken of by the prophet Daniel. It was the messianic kingdom. It was the “coming” or “future” eon, the future time. It should be characterized by justice, life and these things more. Although Paul no longer speaks of the Messianic kingdom, he too sees a difference between this time and the time to come.

“Instruct the rich in the present eon not to think on high, nor to rely on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God.”
1Tim 6:17

“Demas left me out of love for the present eon.”
2Tim 4:10

“Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might take us out of the present evil eon, according to the will of our God and Father.”
Gal 1:4

“Where is the wise man? Where the educated? Where is the questioner of this eon? Does not God make the wisdom of this world foolishness?”
1Cor 1,20

“Wisdom, however, we speak among the mature, but not wisdom of this aeon, nor of the superiors of this aeon, who are dismissed. But we speak of God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden one that God predestined before the eons for our glory. This wisdom has not been recognized by any of the superiors of this eon. For if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”
1Cor 2,6-8

“Let no one deceive himself! If anyone among you thinks to be wise in this eon, let him become foolish (in his own eyes) to become wise.”
1Cor 3,18

“His strength, which wrought in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the midst of the superheavenly, highly exalted above every principality and authority, power and dominion, even above every name that not only in this eon, but also in the one to come.”
Eph 1:20-21

“He raises us up together and sets us down together in the midst of the superheavenly in Christ Jesus, to display the all-surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus in the eons to come.”
Eph 2:6-7

These are some quotes from the letters of the Apostle Paul. Clearly we see here that for him there is a difference between the present time and a future time. For the believer, it is as if something of the future time already applies in the present time. This is “only” spiritual, but it is a real outlook. It is the logical consequence of the proclamation. It is what can give us outlook here and now. This coming time has not yet arrived, but already we know something of its imprint. This is like a new understanding that we may give space to here and now.

That is why Paul says in Romans that we should“not set our minds on this eon, but be transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Rom 12:2). This eon is the temporary. More valuable comes. Spiritually, we already have a share in this. From this realization we can be transformed. This happens through a renewal of our thinking.

The renovation of thinking

One could think of the renovation of an apartment. You imagine something better and then tackle the work. If you want to transform life, if you want to drive renovation, you have to start somewhere. Where to start? In thinking. It is with the renewal of thought that one transforms life. Renovation of thinking is the first step towards renovation of home and life.

The transformation is to take place from the inside. Why is that? The end of a transformation is not a conformity to any laws, subcultures or habits, but it is a skill to be acquired: “so that you may be able to test …”.

If you want to test, you have to learn to think. Therefore, the renewal of the sense of thinking is the basis for everything. This does not just mean a logical reasoning, but it is about the direction and orientation of our thinking. What do we fill our thoughts with? Where do we direct our feelings? The sense of thinking is what we occupy ourselves with throughout the day, what fills our minds. There can be an “unproven mind” (Rom 1:28), a “corrupt mind” (1 Tim 6:5), and a “depraved mind” (2 Tim 3:8), even a “vanity of mind” (Eph 4:17) and a “mind of the flesh” (Col 2:18). We should, the apostle writes elsewhere, “be rejuvenated in our sense of thinking” (Eph. 4:23). From these passages it is easy to deduce that we are meant and it is about our thinking in this world. Because our deeds are derived from it, as well as our expectations and our attitude in life.

To the Corinthians, Paul writes “Therefore we are not discouraged, but though our outward man is corrupting, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Renewal is the antithesis of perdition. The inner man is what matters. The renewal of the inner man ensures vitality. To the Colossians the apostle writes:

“But now you also put away all these things: anger, wrath, evil nature, blasphemy, profanity from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old man, together with his actions, and have put on the young, who is being renewed to knowledge in the image of Him who created him.”
Col 3:8-10

The renewal of thinking goes hand in hand with an active change of life. This is the transformation that may take place. The transformation is “to knowledge in the image of Him … who created him.” So we may be conformed to His image – we may become more like Christ.

“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
Rom 8:29

“But we all, with unveiled face reflecting the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Lord’s [lebendig machendem] Spirit.”
2Cor 3,18

Learn and acquire new skills

They are acquired skills that are useful for everyday life. By renewing our thinking, we should acquire new skills. We learn to test things for value.

The transformation of thinking should enable us to differentiate. We do not get a golden cage, nor a golden coating, when we come to faith. In this real world, things are much more pragmatic. It should become concrete. It is not about feeling, nor about religiosity. We should be enabled to test what the will of God is. However, these skills begin in thinking. The renewal of our thinking should enable us to better assess God’s will. In doing so, we should learn to distinguish three things: the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.

Why three things? Are there three levels here? No. Only one development is outlined here. It seems that Paul has in mind a process that we can go through. We can learn to know God’s will through the stages of good, pleasing and perfect. It describes a result and a development. We will be increasingly better able to judge what really helps.

The process of differentiation and learning continues. The Gospel empowers. The apostle is concerned with progression and transformation. God’s will is not a list of requirements, but they are abilities that we may acquire. That’s where the growth is. It is the alignment of the heart, firmly grounded in an understanding of God’s nature and work, coupled with an understanding of God’s purpose. Faith looks at and appropriates this nature and work and purpose of God. In doing so, we are moving in the same direction as God makes us known. This is how we appropriate the will of God. The believer may see more and more clearly which things are of lasting value. Faith is fragile, but this is how we make something of it.

In the next verses, Paul makes this statement more concrete.