Are You A Paint By Number Or An Original Work Of Art?

No great radical idea can survive unless it is embodied in individuals whose lives are the message. ~Erich Fromm

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world.” Romans 12:2 may be the most universally ignored command in the Bible, yet the key to all the others. Are you a work of art in progress, or do you counterfeit the crowd?

10 signs you are stuck on a paint-by-number canvas:

1. You assume God thinks like you do. If you are disgusted, he must be. If you are delighted with yourself, he must be. If you hate yourself, he must too.
2. When you ask, “What would Jesus do?” you really mean, “What would I do if I were in a good mood?”
3. You are more excited about the idea of meeting a celebrity than getting to know what Jesus really did.
4. You are easily swayed to fear, anger or sentimental tears by what you read or watch.
5. Your opinions reflect the crowd you hang with.
6. You worry about how you look, or are perceived.
7. You fret over what you don’t have.
8. You are more self-protective than self-giving.
9. You avoid thinking about the suffering of people you don’t know.
10. You are easily offended and quick to judge.

If you admit to any of these, congratulations. Recognizing the mold you are being squeezed into is the first, important step to resistance. Why be a pre-planned paint-by- number, when you are meant to be a work of art?

10 Steps To Becoming A Work Of Art

1. Grab onto this truth–God does not think like you do. Isaiah 55:8: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways my ways, says the LORD.” Left to your own devices, chances are very good that the way you perceive things, the ways you respond, are the opposite of God’s. But your mind can be changed.  You can learn to think like God.
2. Read the Bible yourself. God hasn’t left us clueless, but has ultimately revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ. If you read the Gospels carefully, you will notice that almost every time Jesus  speaks, thinks, and acts, the people around him expect the opposite. If you aren’t astonished by Jesus you haven’t met him yet.
3. Look in the mirror and repeat these words, “The world around me is bullying me to be something I was never meant to be.”
4. Look for patterns. One popular paint-by-number perspective? God is indifferent, people are disposable, life is cruel, it’s every man for himself. There you have the subplot of postmodernity.
5. What you think about God matters. If you believe God is perpetually angry, disgusted, indifferent–that’s the kind of person you will be. If you are perpetually angry, disgusted and indifferent to others, that’s who you suspect God is.
6. Open yourself to the incomparable mercy and grace of God, and you will become like him.
7. Die. Actually, die to your presuppositions, prejudices, pressures and patterns–lay down on the operating table and let God give you a self-transplant.
8. Be renewed by listening to God and loving others the way he does.
9. Let God fit you with lenses of trust and hope in him.
10. Turn your attention all day long to what is “true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent, or worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8

How are you choosing to be a work of art?