Do Not Conform

Greetings to the healthiest, wealthiest, and most influential people in the whole region!

What an honor and a joy it is to serve you in ministry and in the King’s Kingdom. I am so excited to be back with y’all this weekend! As much as I enjoy taking these truths around the world and seeing people’s eyes open up to what Jesus desires to do in this Great Awakening… there is still no place like home.

It does bring me much peace and consolation of heart, though, to know that I leave you with the best when I go. I just know that you were deeply blessed by Pastor Bob and my amazing bride as they ministered to you. Also, I see that the Sunday evening prophetic and praise activation service was just plain awesome! I have travelled the world and I am completely convinced that you, and our leaders, and our culture, are literally second to none. I spent quite a bit of time with the staff this Tuesday expressing how valuable and precious this unique culture is. I encouraged them, and now you, to guard that gift that was granted to you from Heaven itself. This culture is not because Kay and I are so special, it is not because the building is anointed, it is not because we are doing the exact right formula… it is because the grace of God is available to us, through the Finished Work of the Cross, and we just humbly accepted it by faith. It almost seems too simple, but yet very profound in reality.

The more I meditate on it, the more I realize that it is the effortless change that is a Kingdom reality for those who have sincerely chosen to have the Christ-ordained life. Some of the most impacting truths that have been an intimate part of my personal journey come from Romans chapter twelve in verses one and two:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

There are boatloads of truths, revelations, and applications to these two sentences, but I want to drill down on the difference between “conform” and “transform.”
Conform
Definition: sysxēmatízō (from sýn, “identified with” and sxēmatizō, “having outward shape”) – properly, assuming a similar outward form (expression) by following the same pattern (model, mold).

This is the synthetic process of the world, and it is working non-stop, everyday, and all day. This dark world, with it’s culture… it’s ways of thinking… it’s influences… it’s narrative… is purposefully working this system of, “conforming,” us whether we like it or not, acknowledge it or not, and even accept it or not. It just is a reality of natural life. The, “normal,” state, like gravity, is to pull every part of our life into this mold. This word can also be described as, “being pressed or pushed into a predetermined mold.” All of the stimuli in worldly life, from what we see on our glowing screens, the propaganda of the talking heads into our ears/thinking, the affections and lusts buffeting our emotions and feelings, all the way down to the appetites of our soft bellies… are to pressure us into accepting a way and type of life that is below the creative intentions of our Father through the New Birth. Do not be fooled, dear Family, this is the incessant working of our enemy and his system to destroy our life, our family, our nation, and our Beloved-Kingdom culture. The more one is focused on and passionate for the temptations of this fallen world, the more we are pressed and forced into the cookie-cutter intentions of slavery and tyranny. Moving zombies who are not truly alive.

1 Peter 1:14 (BSB)
As obedient children, do not conform to the passions of your former ignorance.

1 John 2:15-16 (BSB)
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from the world. 

The King and His Kingdom present to us the authentic process which is the exact opposite, or a counter-culture way of life.
Transform
Definition: metamorphóō (from metá, “change after being with” and morphóō, “changing form in keeping with inner reality”) – properly, transformed after being with; transfigured. Metamorphóō is the root of the English terms “metamorphosis” and “metamorphize.”

As you may already know, this is the process of a slimy, hairy caterpillar becoming a beautiful, free butterfly. The caterpillar is earth-bound, has no purpose but to eat (consume). It cannot defend itself and is just plain ugly. Amen, anyone? Yet, when the time comes for that hairy worm to cast away it’s former life, it’s lower form of living, it eventually spins a hiding place, a cocoon of shelter and change.

Psalm 91:1
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Psalm 32:7
Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.

John 15:7
If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

This is the submissive process of coming to the reality that your self-made, “conformed to the world,” life is hairy, slimy, purposeless, consumer-focused, and a slave to the low dirty places of the natural earth. When we finally realize that this was not what we were created for, we draw into the Father’s safe place of peace and security. We surround ourselves with the culture of Heaven. We build a protective place through the Word and intimacy with Jesus that finally gives us the opportunity for transformation. What a glorious place, what a humble decision, what a mature choice that is.

Then… naturally… organically… finally… we emerge from that cocoon of loving development and unfold our big, colorful, and awe-inspiring wings to allow them to form strong and rigid in the sunlight (Son-light), ready to take flight. Here we are truly free. Here we have a purpose that can only be limited by the heights of our flight in faith. Here we spend our days above the filth of the earth. Here we go from the sweet nectar of one beautiful flower to another. Here we pollinate the whole earth, our family, our neighborhood with the very fragrance of Heaven itself. You are liberated from the pressures of conformity!

This is our Beloved Culture… this is the King’s way and the way of His Kingdom.

I pray your wings are outstretched today and ready to take flight into the freedom of the Finished Work of your Savior!

Now FLY!

I love your beautiful, little fluttery self!
Steve