Lego have brought out cookie cutters, one of which enables children to make cookies in the shape of a Lego person. The only problem is these all tend to look the same because there is (in our set, anyway) only one mould for a Lego person. The world too has a mould which tends to want to churn out the same people, regardless of individuality. This mould may have different ‘flavours’ (some people are materialistic atheists, who do not believe in anything other than the physical world; some are ‘secular’, not being connected to religious views, and others are ‘spiritual’, which usually means an acknowledgement of something other than the material world but which is often a mish-mash of beliefs and ideas, not all of which are religious.)
This mould is how we all once used to live (see Eph 2:2-3), but Rom 12:2 urges us not to let the world around us squeeze us into its mould. The Message version translates this as ‘Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.’ We’re not required to be chameleons, adapting to our culture to the extent that we live our lives effectively as functioning atheists. We can become all things to all men (as Paul put it) without fitting into the world’s mould. By letting Christ be Lord in every area of our lives, we show people a different mould altogether.
In God, the ordinary can become extraordinary and the natural can become supernatural. He can take our mundane, everyday lives and accomplish more with them than we can imagine. What He longs for is for us to be naturally supernatural. This means being unafraid of the truth (since Jesus is full of truth and described Himself as the Truth) and living lives that break the mould. We can live righteous lives, showing others the right way to live; we can show compassion to others (Col 3:12). We are meant to be Christ’s ambassadors who reveal His character to the world, living out the Beatitudes (being peacemakers, being meek, mourning over sin and so on), effectively ‘being’ God among the people.
