happy birthday Jesus

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you." -Romans 12:1-2 (The Message translation)

I love the way the message translates this verse, and although this has always been one of my favorite's... I'm going to be re-focusing on it and making it my "life verse" this year. It may seem simple and straightforward, but it calls us to transform our lives (or let God transform our lives) in extraordinary ways. This is one of the few verses that come to mind when I think about how Christians are supposed to act toward our culture. Notice that it doesn't say to "avoid" your culture or "neglect" your culture. It says not to be "adjusted" or "conformed" to your culture. Simple, yet so important. Again... this verse is going to be my focus this year.