The Old is New

Trying to break myself away from the new 90210...ugh...okay...

So today while I was folding laundry, I noticed that New Kids on the Block were on The View. They sounded pretty good. Of course, they performed a new song, title unknown, and a golden oldie, "Step by Step" (oooo, baby!). Is everything old new again, already?

I am intrigued by the cycle of culture in our society. I mean, when are the things that are good and simple and pure going to come back around? It makes me think of how we are called to be new creations: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! (2 Cor. 5:17) So if we keep on going back to the things we once knew, how will we grow or be better than we once were?

My husband and I have shared our testimonies in Christ together in a couple of public settings, once in our small group and once in our Sunday school class. Our stories go perfectly together, considering he is the one who brought me out of my old life and into my new one. We used the following verses from Romans to discuss how our testimonies aren't just a story of how we came to Christ, but an ever-growing story of our lives with Christ.

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV)
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

And I can help but include The Message version of the same verses because of the reference to "the culture around you."

Here's The Message version:
So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

I can't claim to be perfect in this area of growth because I am guilty of reverting back to my same, old habits, but I have to remember that I am a new creation. So are you going in circles like a fad in culture, or are you growing upwards toward Him?