Everyone wants to be better.

We want to improve.

We want to change.

We want to grow.

And if you are in Christ, you are brand new.

You are a new creation.

That's as radical of a change as you can get.

But it doesn't change the fact that every day we feel torn, this push towards a new life and a pull to a past life, this agonizing tug between the old pattern that we were and the new pattern that we are trying to be as a tension that we can sometimes feel, it feels impossible, like being both dead and alive at the same time.

Today on Ask Pastor John, Dying to Live.

As Romans Month continues, Maria writes in from Dublin, Ireland.

Pastor John, hello to you.

In Romans 12 to 15, those chapters, Paul offers practical

guidance for Christians living in response to God's mercy. He begins by urging believers to offer

their bodies as living sacrifices, holy, acceptable to God. In Romans 12, 1, which seems like a

rather obscure and radical calling, so what does this mean to live as a living sacrifice in our daily lives?

Paul also calls us to not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind in Romans 12.2.

How does this transformation manifest in a Christian's thoughts, decisions, and actions,

especially when we face fierce social pressures to conform to anything but Christ?

There really are two questions here.

But the fascinating thing is that when you put the two questions together, a third question

emerges that sheds light on the other two.

So here's what I mean.

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