Take one word at a time

We started new small groups at CSI tonight and I joined this one about Paul. It's really interesting because it ties in how Rome is so similar to the way the U.S. is, and is becoming. Tonight it highlighted a few verses in Romans:

They have become filled iwth every kind of wickedness, evil,
greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit,
and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent,
arrogant, and boastful; they invent new ways of doing evil;
they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Romans 1:29-31

This verse sounds a little harsh, but think about it, I'm sure anyone could think of someone who fills at least one of these categories. Pick any of those words and relate it to today's world. Envy, we want what our best friends has, we beg to have the useless stuff we know we can't afford. Gossips, it's all about that girl in history class who parties every weekend. Funny how this was written for Rome, the power of the world, so many years ago. Who's the power now? We are. Look at how we're abusing this power. Look at the way the media tells us "how we should live". Good example right?
Paul encourages out of so much love and compassion for people, to not fall into the way we are "supposed" to live.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer
your bodies and 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.
Romans 12:1-2

In these verses you can just hear Paul's love. He urges us to offer ourselves, not to conform. He pleads with us. We doesn't want us to fall into the trap. Especially when he knows there is so much more to offer. There is so much to get out of these two verses it would take pages to fully explain. So I encourage you to read them again. Ask God what he means to show through them. Through every individual word.