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Do Not Be Formed by the Age – The Formed Future · Still, Here

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is still here, a quiet moment to remember what is true.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to these words from the book of Romans, chapter 12, verse 2.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Don't be conformed to this world,
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Every age teaches people how to live.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It teaches us what to admire,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: what to fear,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: what counts as success,
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: how fast we are supposed to move,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: which voices deserve our attention, and what kind of person seems valuable.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Most of that teaching does not arrive as a lesson.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It can become the air around us.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, don't be conformed to this world.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Do not let the age press you into its pattern.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is bigger than avoiding obvious wrongdoing.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is an invitation to notice the quiet ways the world around us can begin shaping the soul.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: The age can conform us through hurry,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: comparison, outrage, constant information, the fear of being left behind.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: The assumption that every new thing deserves immediate attention.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: The feeling that if we are not keeping up, we are becoming irrelevant.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the things shaping us are useful things.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: A tool can help us think, work, create, communicate, or learn.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing wrong with receiving a good tool as a gift.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: But a helpful tool can begin driving the way we think If we stop paying attention
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: to what is happening within us.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is why the question cannot only be, what can this do?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We also have to ask, what is this doing to me?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Is it making me more attentive or more scattered?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: More thoughtful or more reactive?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: More present to people or more impatient with them?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a technology question alone.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It is a formation question.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says the answer is the renewing of the mind.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Renewal is not simply collecting better opinions.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: A renewed mind begins to see differently.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: We become more able to recognize what is good.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: What is well-pleasing to God and what is whole and complete?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: We begin to notice what is shaping us before it becomes part of us.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of awareness is not suspicion.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: God is not asking us to fear the world,
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: reject every new thing, or retreat from the age we have been called to live in.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: He is teaching us how to live in it without surrendering the shape of our souls to it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: So, notice one influence today.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Your phone.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: The news.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: A work expectation.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Social media.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: A conversation you keep replaying.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: A tool you use every day.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: A fear that keeps telling you what has to happen next.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Ask what it is teaching you to want.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Ask what it is teaching you to fear.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Ask what it is making easier to ignore.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Then bring that influence into the presence of Christ.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: The first act of freedom is often simply noticing.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: You do not need to condemn yourself for being affected by the age.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: You live here.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: You breathe this air.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Of course it touches you.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it does not have to decide who you become.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: In Christ, another formation is already at work.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Take a moment for this prayer of presence.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, renew my mind.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Show me the pressures I have mistaken for normal life and
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: the assumptions I have absorbed without noticing.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Keep me open to what is useful without letting usefulness become my ruler.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Give me wisdom to recognize what is forming love, attention, truth, and faithfulness within me.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Let me live fully in this age without allowing the age to decide the shape of my soul.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: As you open your inbox, your calendar, your door, carry this prayer with you.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: When the age presses in,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Renew my mind in Christ.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: When the age presses in, Renew my mind in Christ.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: When the age presses in, Renew my mind in Christ.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay steady, stay open, stay present.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: You are still here.