Finding What Satisfies

The madness that skews the unbelieving world’s thought processes also affects its value system. Lost in sin, unbelievers think first and foremost of the satisfaction of their personal desires. That leads them to place a high value on wealth, power, physical beauty, material possessions, and other such things that are seen as means to the fulfillment of one’s desires. Not surprisingly, unbelievers generally agree that since these are the good things in life, it is perfectly OK to do just about anything to acquire them. However, as we learned in Friday’s study, Paul’s desire is that Christians’ minds be renewed from unbelieving thinking by exposure to God’s thoughts in His revealed Word. As this process takes place in a person, he or she begins to think more of self-sacrifice than self-fulfillment. And, not surprisingly, his or her values begin to change—which is precisely what Paul holds out as a most desirable result in the passage before us today.

With the renewing of the mind, Paul writes, comes the ability to “prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” This is a confusing phrase. The Greek word here translated “prove” can mean “to approve” or “to discern.” At first glance, these possible meanings seem rather variant. The first, “to approve,” seems to support the idea of a new value system. The second, “to discern,” seems to suggest that giving ourselves to God will help us discover the specific will of God for each of us. All Christians rejoice at that prospect, for we long to know what God desires for us to do in our individual lives.

But Dr. James M. Boice argues that Paul is not referring here to God’s specific plan for each person. He writes: “The context indicates that the will of God that we are encouraged to follow is the general will of offering our bodies to God as living sacrifices, refusing to be conformed to the world’s ways, and instead being transformed from within by the renewing of our minds.” He goes on to add that as we submit to God in these areas, we will find His will to be “good,” “acceptable” (or “pleasing”), and “perfect” (or “satisfyingly complete”). Our values systems will be rewritten and we will cease to desire the things that bring us only sinful pleasure and fulfillment. Instead, we will begin to know, to desire, and to take great delight in doing those things that please our heavenly Father.