Let's Be Decent Human Beings

By Jill Archie

Romans 12...A powerful chapter on how to be different, how to be Christ-like, and just how to be a decent human being.
This book focuses on a different verse or instruction for each chapter. It is applicable, achievable, and most of all transformational for anyone who really puts these into practice.The change starts first with us. Let’s start a new trend.

Let’s be decent human beings.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jill Archie
• Release date: Jun 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463158036

Book preview

DON’T FOLLOW THE TRENDS

Do not conform to the patterns of this world… Romans 12:2

Who do you answer to? If you are a believer in Jesus, once you get to heaven, who do you answer to? The world? Your peers? The media? Who?

This is what God told me in the midst of unrest, riots, looting and protesting and frankly, the world going insane: Don’t follow the trends of the world. He also emphasized that some trends may be good and not all are bad, but it is not for me to follow the trends of the world but to follow Christ and live as a peculiar people or like aliens in a foreign land. To be in the world, but not of the world.

Think about how difficult it would be to find truth if God didn’t want to reveal it to us. There are over 7.5 billion people in the world today with no identical perspective or opinion. Everyone has a voice and many have outstanding logic, wisdom, and intelligence. But who has truth? How do I know that Group A is going down the right road and Group B is lost? How do I know who is lying and who is confused, or who is just plain stupid?

The world works in patterns, or in this instance, God told me trends. A trend is the latest thing to catch attention, to lure people into following, to give people something to be occupied with. A trend is just a general direction for people to live in, but the funny thing about trends is they are always changing. One day skinny jeans are the thing, next week we’re back to bell bottoms. That is a petty example, but the world even deals with heavy issues with a trend mentality. Apocalyptic events come and go at a dizzying pace. But if we step back and look, we’ll see a pattern. The pattern of the world. A new issue arises, or an old one is resurrected, and now more than ever because of media, social media, etc., everyone can express their opinion and change it at will weekly, daily, and hourly based on other opinions. Instead of searching for truth, people simply exchange opinions and continually run in circles in the never ending, but highly predictable, pattern of this world.

I’ve begun to intentionally seek out truth instead of joining a certain side of opinions that sound best to me. I’m sure a lot of you want truth as well, but where are you looking for it? To find it, I had to step out of the pattern. I had to go straight to the source of truth itself. I just went straight to God. I have started, I guess you could say, my own trend, to ask God about current events, His thoughts, and how to handle what is going on and what the solution is. He has answered me every single time.

As a Christian, where do you go to first to get the full story? In all of the craziness of an impeachment, a virus, a national upheaval, an economic crisis, have you turned off the TV and your phone and just asked the guy who actually has all of the information, the true story, and even more importantly, all of the answers?

So I’m not here to express my opinion on any of the conversations of race that have been going on, because I would be just joining the trend. But I will share what God told me.

When I sat down with God, He showed me Romans 12. Of course the first thing He said was, don’t follow the trends of the world (right or wrong, good or bad). Then He placed a seed of mild obsession inside of my head and my spirit over the rest of the chapter, but particularly verses 9 through 21. It is basically a list of how to be a decent human being, although there are a few that are more challenging than others.

I’d read these verses many times, but felt as if I was reading them for the first time and realized a few things. One, I really have not done any of these very well. Two, the church as a whole has really not done these very well. And three, if we did just these things, we could transform the world. Honestly, if we did the 20 instructions in this section of Romans 12, the church could become a famous people. Even if someone wasn’t interested in being a Christian, they would walk away saying, Man, that person was amazing/kind/loving/forgiving.

We could become that peculiar people who love sincerely, share with those in need, practice