Romans 12:1-2

Our feelings and our thoughts are very much connected.  If someone points a gun at you, and you recognize it as a toy, you will not feel fear.  If someone points a gun at you and you instantly feel great fear, the fear will prevent you from recognizing the gun as a toy.  We arrive at all of our decisions through a combination of feeling and thinking.

New Christians are born again with new opportunity and potential.  They have the opportunity to change into the likeness of Christ.  The world would rather that they not change, and will pressure them to conform.  Our feelings are the focal point of most pressure to conform.  It is normal to have feelings that desire acceptance and a need to belong.  We will conform to the world unless our desire to please God is stronger.  When our desire to please God is strong enough, we willingly offer our bodies as living sacrifices.

Having a desire to live righteous, is not enough by itself to produce Christ-likeness.  To make ourselves into the image of Christ, we must know his will, and then must do it.  We cannot know God’s will by feeling along; we must learn to think like God.  All of our life, the world has been teaching us to think unrighteous.  Now we must allow God’s word to transform our minds.  We must learn to think as God thinks.  We cannot do God’s will if we cannot recognize it.  We must be able to measure the possibilities against what the bible teaches about God’s righteousness.  God’s will is always good and pleasing.  No possible action that would be unpleasing to Him can be His will.

If we are not investing the time and effort, it takes to re-train our minds we are not being a living sacrifice.  We will never reach our full potential.  Being a living sacrifice is more than just feeling; it is also thinking and doing.  Learning to think righteous is required before we can live righteous.