Renovation of the Heart

  • Author: Dallas Willard
  • Full Title: Renovation of the Heart
  • Tags: #Inbox #books

Highlights

  • the most important thing in life is the person you become. (Location 292)
  • Although God can triumph in disorder, that is not his choice. And instead of focusing upon what God can do, we must humble ourselves to accept the ways he has chosen to work with us. These are clearly laid out in the Bible, and especially in the words and person of Jesus. (Location 383)
  • The perceived distance and difficulty of entering fully into the divine world and its life are due entirely to our failure to understand that “the way in” is the way of pervasive inner transformation and to our failure to take the small steps that quietly and certainly lead to it. (Location 389)
  • No one need live in spiritual and personal defeat. A life of victory over sin and circumstance is accessible to all. (Location 393)

CHAPTER 1INTRODUCING SPIRITUAL FORMATION

  • the situations in which we find ourselves are never as important as our responses to them, which come from our “spiritual” side. A carefully cultivated heart will, assisted by the grace of God, foresee, forestall, or transform most of the painful situations before which others stand like helpless children saying, “Why?” (Location 423)
  • The revolution of Jesus is in the first place and continuously a revolution of the human heart or spirit. It did not and does not proceed by means of the formation of social institutions and laws, the outer forms of our existence, intending that these would then impose a good order of life upon people who come under their power. Rather, his is a revolution of character, which proceeds by changing people from the inside through ongoing personal relationship to God in Christ and to one another. It is one that changes their ideas, beliefs, feelings, and habits of choice, as well as their bodily tendencies and social relations. It penetrates to the deepest layers of their souls. External social arrangements may be useful to this end, but they are not the end, nor are they a fundamental part of the means. (Location 451)
  • a renovated “within” will not cooperate with public streams of unrighteousness. It will block them—or die trying. It is the only thing that can do so. (Location 458)
  • T. S. Eliot once described the current human endeavor as that of finding a system of order so perfect that we will not have to be good. The way of Jesus tells us, by contrast, that any number of systems—not all, to be sure—will work well if we are genuinely good. And we are then free to seek the better and the best. (Location 460)
  • This impotence of “systems” is a main reason why Jesus did not send his students out to start governments or even churches as we know them today, which always strongly convey some elements of a human system. They were, instead, to establish beachheads of his person, word, and power in the midst of a failing and futile humanity. They were to bring the presence of the kingdom and its King into every corner of human life by simply, fully living in the kingdom with him. (Location 464)
  • Spiritual formation, without regard to any specifically religious context or tradition, is the process by which the human spirit or will is given a definite “form” or character. (Location 562)
  • Our hearts cry out, “Lord, I want to be a Christian in my heart.”[4] (Location 613)
  • It is now generally recognized that the question “Am I a Christian?” can no longer be answered in any significant manner by citing denominational, ethnic, or national names or symbols. There are now 33,800 different Christian denominations on earth.[5] Clearly, an adequate answer must go deeper than our religious associations. It must refer to what we are in our hearts—before God, in the depths of our being, always the focal point of Christian spiritual formation. (Location 621)

Distinctively Christian Spiritual Formation

  • spiritual formation for the Christian basically refers to the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human self in such a way that it becomes like the inner being of Christ himself.[6] (Location 631)
  • Christian spiritual formation is focused entirely on Jesus. Its goal is an obedience or conformity to Christ that arises out of an inner transformation accomplished through purposive interaction with the grace of God in Christ. Obedience is an essential outcome of Christian spiritual formation (John 13:34-35; 14:21). (Location 635)
  • External manifestation of “Christlikeness” is not, however, the focus of the process; and when it is made the main emphasis, the process will certainly be defeated, falling into deadening legalisms and pointless parochialism. (Location 637)
  • we must understand that spiritual formation is not only formation of the spirit or inner being of the individual, though that is both the process and the outcome. It is also formation by the Spirit of God and by the spiritual riches of Christ’s continuing incarnation in his people—including, most prominently, the treasures of his written and spoken word and the amazing personalities of those in whom he has most fully lived. (Location 660)
  • it is who we are in our thoughts, feelings, dispositions, and choices—in the inner life—that counts. Profound transformation there is the only thing that can definitively conquer outward evil. (Location 674)
  • But taking love itself—God’s kind of love—into the depths of our being through spiritual formation will, by contrast, enable us to act lovingly to an extent that will be surprising even to ourselves, at first. And this love will then become a constant source of joy and refreshment to ourselves and others. (Location 686)
  • Spiritual experiences (Paul on the Damascus road, and so on) do not constitute spiritual formation, though they could be a meaningful part thereof and sometimes are. (Location 706)
  • “Lord, I Want to Be a Christian,” African American spiritual, first published in Frederick J. Work, Folk Songs of the American Negro (Nashville, 1907), public domain. (Location 755)

CHAPTER 2THE HEART IN THE SYSTEM OF HUMAN LIFE

  • Will refers to that component’s power to initiate, to create, to bring about what did not exist before. Spirit refers to its fundamental nature as distinct and independent from physical reality. And heart refers to its position in the human being, as the center or core to which every other component of the self owes its proper functioning. But it is the same dimension of the human being that has all these features. (Location 830)

The Heart Directs the Life

  • Those with a well-kept heart are persons who are prepared for and capable of responding to the situations of life in ways that are good and right. (Location 834)
  • The human heart, will, or spirit is the executive center of a human life. The heart is where decisions and choices are made for the whole person. That is its function. (Location 839)
  • The individual, like the group, is often divided into incoherent fragments. “Like a city that is broken into and without walls is a man who has no control over his spirit” (Proverbs 25:28). (Location 845)

The Six Basic Aspects of a Human Life

  • These together and in interplay make up “human nature.” Thought (images, concepts, judgments, inferences) Feeling (sensations, emotions) Choice (will, decisions, character) Body (actions, interactions with the physical world) Social context (personal and structural relations to others) Soul (the factor that integrates all of the other aspects to form one life) Simply put, every human being thinks (has a thought life), feels, chooses, interacts with his or her body and its social context, and (more or less) integrates all of the foregoing as parts of one life. (Location 857)
  • A major part of understanding spiritual formation in the Christian traditions is to follow closely the way the biblical writings repeatedly and emphatically focus on the various essential dimensions of the human being and their roles in life as a whole. (Location 875)

The Human Self Is Not Mysterious!

A Brief Initial Survey of the Six Human Dimensions

Thought
  • Thought brings things before our minds in various ways (including perception and imagination) and enables us to consider them in various respects and trace out their interrelationships with one another. Thought is that which enables our will (or spirit) to range far beyond the immediate boundaries of our environment and the perceptions of our senses. (Location 906)
  • Through it our consciousness reaches into the depths of the universe, past, present, and future, by reasoning and scientific thinking, by imagination and art—and also by divine revelation, which comes to us mainly in the form of thought. (Location 908)
Feeling
  • Feeling inclines us toward or away from things that come before our minds in thought. It involves a tone that is pleasant or painful, along with an attraction or repulsion with respect to the existence or possession of what is thought of. (Location 911)
  • The connection between thought and feeling is so intimate that the “mind” is usually treated as consisting of thought and feeling together. (Location 916)
Will (Spirit, Heart)
  • Volition, or choice, is the exercise of will, the capacity of the person to originate things and events that would not otherwise be or occur. By “originate” here we mean to include two of the things most prized in human life: freedom and creativity. These are really two aspects of the same thing when properly understood, which is power to do what is good—or evil. (Location 923)
  • But sin itself is when we inwardly say yes to the temptation, when we would do the deed, even though we do not actually do it. (Location 933)
Body
  • The body is the focal point of our presence in the physical and social world. (Location 968)
  • The body is not, in the biblical view, essentially evil; and, while it is infected with evil, it can be delivered. Spiritual formation is also and essentially a bodily process. It cannot succeed unless the body is also transformed. (Location 992)
Social Context
  • Western culture is, largely unbeknown to itself, a culture of rejection. This is one of the irresistible effects of what is called “modernity,” and it deeply affects the concrete forms Christian institutions take in our time. It seeps into our souls and is a deadly enemy to spiritual formation in Christ. (Location 1009)
Soul
  • The soul is that dimension of the person that interrelates all of the other dimensions so that they form one life. (Location 1021)
  • But for all of the soul’s vastness and independence, the tiny executive center of the person—that is, the spirit or will—can redirect and re-form the soul, with God’s cooperation. (Location 1039)
  • We must clearly understand that there is a rigorous consistency in the human self and its actions. This is one of the things we are most inclined to deceive ourselves about. If I do evil, I am the kind of person who does evil; if I do good, I am the kind of person who does good (1 John 3:7-10). Actions are not impositions on who we are but are expressions of who we are. They come out of the heart and the inner realities it supervises and interacts with. (Location 1071)
  • The Israelites were saved or delivered by grace just as surely as we are. But in both cases “grace” means we are to be, and are enabled to be, active to a degree we have never been before. Paul’s picture of grace is “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed” (2 Corinthians 9:8). (Location 1138)
  • We need not and must not wait until we die to live in the land of milk and honey; and if we will only move to that land now, the passage in physical death will be but one more day in the endless life we have long since begun. That is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “If anyone keeps my words he shall never see or taste death” (John 8:51, PAR). (Location 1150)

CHAPTER 3RADICAL EVIL IN THE RUINED SOUL

  • it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. (Location 1222)
  • I have also chosen this story as an illustration because a major part of the response by Christians to manifest sin, in this case, was to cover it up. This is not uncommon. No doubt it was “for the sake of the ministry,” as is usually said. The “confessions” of the various pastors were often half-truths or less and were clearly matters of a formality that would, supposedly, allow the pastors and staff members to “get on with God’s business.” (Location 1264)
  • The words of James ring true: “Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:16, NIV). (Location 1270)
  • Most Christians have never been in an intimate fellowship where the corrupted condition of the human soul did not in fact prevail—that is, in a fellowship in which they could assume that everyone would do what everyone knew to be right. (Location 1271)
  • As Vance Havner used to say, Jesus was not crucified for saying, “Behold the lilies of the field, how they toil not, neither do they spin,” but for saying, “Behold the Pharisees, how they steal.” (Location 1292)
  • When the prophet Jeremiah, for example, said, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” we have to recognize from our hearts that we are the ones spoken of, that, indeed, I am the one described (Jeremiah 17:9). Only then is a foundation laid for spiritual formation into Christlikeness. (Location 1297)
  • God is not mean, but he is dangerous. It is the same with other great forces he has placed in reality. Electricity and nuclear power, for example, are not mean, but they are dangerous. One who does not, in a certain sense, “worry” about God simply isn’t smart. And that is the point of the verse. (Location 1335)
  • We’re not lost because we are going to wind up in the wrong place. We are going to wind up in the wrong place because we are lost. (Location 1440)
  • Spiritual formation is not something that may, or may not, be added to the gift of eternal life as an option. Rather, it is the path that the eternal kind of life “from above” naturally takes. It is the path one must be on if his or hers is to be an eternal kind of life. (Location 1524)

CHAPTER 4RADICAL GOODNESS RESTORED TO THE SOUL

  • It means that they will then for the first time be able to do what they want to do. Of course they will be able to steal, lie, and murder all they want—which will be none at all. But they will also be able to be truthful and transparent and helpful and sacrificially loving, with joy—and they will want to be. Their lives will be in this way caught up in God’s life. They will want the good and be able to do it, the only true human freedom. (Location 1662)
  • Jesus was not some harsh ascetic who practiced or imposed pain for its own sake. He did not choose death because it was good in itself, but “for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross and despised the shame” (Hebrews 12:2, PAR). (Location 1734)
  • Personally, at the beginning of my day—often before arising—I commit my day to the Lord’s care. Usually I do this while meditatively praying through the Lord’s Prayer, and possibly the Twenty-third Psalm as well. Then I meet everything that happens as sent or at least permitted by God. I meet it resting in the hand of his care. (Location 1776)
  • Being dead to self is the condition where the mere fact that I do not get what I want does not surprise or offend me and has no control over me. (Location 1801)
  • We will, as Saint Francis of Assisi said, “wear the world like a loose garment, which touches us in a few places and there lightly.” (Location 1814)

Standing for the Right without Egotism

  • One of the real sources of difficulty here is confusion of our desire for what is good and right to prevail with our desire to have our own way. One often sees the effects of this confusion in controversies in families, in churches, or between religious and political groups. (Location 1856)
  • Families, churches, communities, and sovereign nations become embroiled in deadly conflicts that would immediately disappear or be resolvable but for the relentless will to have my/our way. (Location 1860)
  • To accept, with confidence in God, that I do not immediately have to have my way releases me from the great pressure that anger, unforgiveness, and the “need” to retaliate impose upon my life. This by itself is a huge transformation of the landscape of our lives. It removes the root and source of by far the greater part of human evil we have to deal with in our world. (Location 1871)

CHAPTER 5SPIRITUAL CHANGE

  • more than vision is required, and especially there is required an intention. Projects of personal transformation rarely if ever succeed by accident, drift, or imposition. Indeed, where accident, drift, and imposition dominate—as they usually do, quite frankly, in the lives of professing Christians—very little of any human value transpires. (Location 2078)
  • Historically, the AA program was closely aligned with the church and Christian traditions, and now it has much to give back to a church that has largely lost its grip on spiritual formation as a standard path of Christian life. Any successful plan for spiritual formation, whether for the individual or group, will in fact be significantly similar to the Alcoholics Anonymous program. (Location 2109)
  • That is why today you find many professing Christians circling back to non-Christian sources to resolve the problems of their inner lives. Instead of inward transformation, some outward form of religion—often today even called “a spirituality”—is taken or imposed as the goal of practical endeavor. (Location 2133)
  • If we are concerned about our own spiritual formation or that of others, this vision of the kingdom is the place we must start. (Location 2144)
  • The vision that underlies spiritual (trans)formation into Christlikeness is, then, the vision of life now and forever in the range of God’s effective will—that is, partaking of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:1-2) through a birth “from above” and participating by our actions in what God is doing now in our lifetimes on earth. (Location 2156)
  • What we are aiming for in this vision is to live fully in the kingdom of God and as fully as possible now and here, not just hereafter. (Location 2161)
  • The vision of life in the kingdom through reliance upon Jesus makes it possible for us to intend to live in the kingdom as he did. We can actually decide to do it. Of course that means first of all to trust him, rely on him, to count on him being the Anointed One, the Christ. It is through him that the revelation and the gift of the kingdom come to us individually. (Location 2172)
  • Concretely, we intend to live in the kingdom of God by intending to obey the precise example and teachings of Jesus. This is the form that trust in him takes. It does not take the form of merely believing things about him, however true they may be. Indeed, no one can actually believe the truth about him without trusting him by intending to obey him. It is a mental impossibility. To think otherwise is to indulge a widespread illusion that now smothers spiritual formation in Christlikeness among professing Christians and prevents it from naturally spreading worldwide. (Location 2176)
  • Moreover, knowing the “right answers”—knowing which ones they are, being able to identify them—does not mean we believe them. To believe them, like believing anything else, means that we are set to act as if they (the right answers) are true and that we will do so in appropriate circumstances. (Location 2183)
  • Perhaps the hardest thing for sincere Christians to come to grips with is the level of real unbelief in their own lives: the unformulated skepticism about Jesus that permeates all dimensions of their being and undermines what efforts they do make toward Christlikeness. (Location 2188)
  • God is not going to pick us up by the seat of our pants, as it were, and throw us into transformed kingdom living, into “holiness.” (Location 2257)

Interlude

  • In particular, I find, they are unable to put special practices, such as the disciplines of solitude, Scripture memorization, or fasting into a seamless unity with the rest of their lives—with each of the six dimensions outlined earlier. (Location 2307)

CHAPTER 6TRANSFORMING THE MIND, PART 1Spiritual Formation and the Thought Life

  • The ultimate freedom we have as human beings is the power to select what we will allow or require our minds to dwell upon. We are not totally free in this respect. But we do have great freedom here, and even though “dead in . . . trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), we still have the ability and responsibility to try to retain God in our knowledge—if only in an inadequate and halting manner. And (Location 2345)
  • Our power over our thoughts is of great and indispensable assistance in directing and controlling our feelings, which themselves are not directly under the guidance of our will. We cannot just choose our feelings. (Location 2357)
  • The realm of thought involves four main factors. These are ideas, images, information, and our ability to think, but the two most powerful ones are ideas and images. (Location 2370)
  • Ideas are very general models of or assumptions about reality. They are patterns of interpretation, historically developed and socially shared. They sometimes are involved with beliefs but are much more than belief and do not depend upon it. (Location 2371)
  • Now, for all their importance to human life, ideas are never capable of definition or precise specification; and yet people never stop trying to define them, in their vain efforts to control them. (Location 2386)
  • is extremely difficult for most people to recognize which ideas are governing their lives and how those ideas are governing their lives. This is partly because one commonly identifies his or her own governing ideas with reality, pure and simple. (Location 2389)
  • Another illustration of “idea grip” would be how most people think of success in life in terms of promotions and possessions. One’s culture is seen most clearly in what one thinks of as “natural” and as requiring no explanation or even thought. (Location 2395)
  • Christian spiritual formation is inescapably a matter of recognizing in ourselves the idea system (or systems) of evil that governs the present age and the respective culture (or various cultures) that constitute life away from God. (Location 2397)
  • To change governing ideas, whether in the individual or the group, is one of the most difficult and painful things in human life. Genuine “conversion” is a wrenching experience. It rarely happens to the individual or group except in the form of divine intervention, revolution, or something very like a mental breakdown. (Location 2411)
  • Closely associated with governing ideas are images that occupy our minds. Images are always concrete or specific, as opposed to the abstractness of ideas, and are heavily laden with feeling. They frequently present themselves with the force of perception and have a powerful emotional and sensuous linkage to governing idea systems. (Location 2422)
  • In many Christian churches today the services have divided into “traditional” and “contemporary,” primarily over imagery and the explosive feelings attached thereto. The guitar and pipe organ are no longer just musical instruments; they are powerful symbols. This is not to say that such divisions are either unimportant or sinful. But in order to act responsibly in relation to them, one does have to understand what drives such divisions. (Location 2430)
  • That our idea of God corresponds as nearly as possible to the true being of God is of immense importance to us. Compared with our actual thoughts about Him, our creedal statements are of little consequence. Our real idea of God may lie buried under the rubbish of conventional religious notions and may require an intelligent and vigorous search before it is finally unearthed and exposed for what it is. Only after an ordeal of painful self-probing are we likely to discover what we actually believe about God.                 A right conception of God is basic not only to systematic theology but to practical Christian living as well. It is to worship what the foundation is to the temple; where it is inadequate or out of plumb the whole structure must sooner or later collapse. I believe there is scarcely an error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about God.[2] (Location 2449)
  • Spiritual Formation Requires Thinking (Location 2537)
  • We must seek the Lord by devoting our powers of thinking to understanding the facts and information of the gospel. This is the primary way of focusing our minds on him, setting him before us. (Location 2556)
  • worship is the single most powerful force in completing and sustaining restoration in the whole person. (Location 2602)
  • I constantly and thoughtfully engage myself with the ideas, images, and information that are provided by God through the Scriptures; his Son, Jesus; and the lives and experiences of his people through the ages. In doing that, I am constantly nourished by the Holy Spirit in ways far beyond my own efforts or understanding. What I receive in response to my efforts is therefore also a gift, a grace. Spiritual (trans)formation of my thought life is achieved by the ministry of the Spirit in the midst of my necessary and well-directed efforts. (Location 2657)
  • I realize that I will either allow my view of evil to determine my view of God and will cut him down accordingly, or I will allow my view of God to determine my view of the evil and will elevate him accordingly, accepting that nothing is beyond his power for good. (Location 2662)
  • Often a good starting point when trying to help those who do not believe in God or accept Christ as Lord is to get them to deal honestly with the question, “Would I like for there to be a God?” Or, “Would I like it if Jesus turned out to be Lord?” This may help them realize the extent to which what they want to be the case is controlling their ability to see what is the case. (Location 2685)
  • The most obvious thing we can do is to draw certain key portions of Scripture into our minds and make them a part of the permanent fixtures of our thoughts. This is the primary discipline for the thought life. We need to know these Scriptures like the backs of our hands, and a good way to do that is to memorize them and then constantly turn them over in our minds as we go through the events and circumstances of our lives (Joshua 1:8; Psalm 1:2). (Location 2733)
  • The desired effect will not be realized by focusing on isolated verses but will certainly come as we ingest passages, such as Romans 5:1-8 or 8:1-15, 1 Corinthians 13, or Colossians 3:1-17. When you take these into your mind, your mind will become filled with the light of God himself. And light shines into darkness and darkness loses. When the light comes into a room, we do not have to say, “Now what are we going to do about the darkness?” It’s gone! (Location 2737)

CHAPTER 7TRANSFORMING THE MIND, PART 2Spiritual Formation and Our Feelings

  • Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings—whether it is anger, fear, sexual attraction, desire for food or for “looking good,” the residues of woundedness, or whatever—are typically persons who in their heart of hearts believe that their feelings must be satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of selectively resisting their feelings instead of that of not having them—of simply changing or replacing them. (Location 2909)
  • out. In any case, let it be very clear that denying feelings or repressing them is not the answer to our problem. The proper course of action is to replace destructive feelings with others that are good, or to subordinate them—anger and sexual desire, for example—in a way that makes them constructive and transforms their effects. The process of spiritual formation in Christ will do this by grace—effectively and intelligently received, and put into constant practice. (Location 3004)
  • we must walk away from painful and destructive feelings. Simply that. Walk away. (Location 3029)
  • Combined with a sense of righteousness, strong feeling becomes impervious to fact and reason. (Location 3054)
  • Those who are wise will, accordingly, never allow themselves, if they can help it, to get in a position where they feel too deeply about any human matter. They will never willingly choose to allow feeling to govern them. They will carefully keep the pathway open to the house of reason and go there regularly to listen. (Location 3057)
  • The addict is one who, in one way or another, has given in to feeling of one kind or another and has placed it in the position of ultimate value in his or her life. (Location 3070)
  • what exactly is love? It is will to good or “benevolence.” We love something or someone when we promote its good for its own sake. Love’s contrary is malice, and its simple absence is indifference. Its normal accompaniment is delight, but a twisted soul may delight in evil and take no pleasure in good. (Location 3183)
  • Love is not the same thing as desire, for I may desire something without even wishing it well, much less willing its good. I might desire a chocolate ice cream cone, for example. But I do not wish it well; I wish to eat it. This is the difference between lust (mere desire) and love, as between a man and a woman. Desire and love are, of course, compatible when desire is ruled by love; but most people today would, unfortunately, not even know the difference between them. (Location 3186)
  • Pride is defined by desire, not by love. It is, above all, the presumption that my desires should be fulfilled and that it is an injustice, a crying shame, and an injury if they are not. (Location 3199)
  • Here, then, is the full account of the movements of love in our lives: We are loved by God who is love, and in turn we love him, and others through him, who in turn love us through him. Thus is love made perfect or complete. (Location 3221)
  • Joy is natural in the presence of such love. Joy is a pervasive sense—not just a thought—of well-being: of overall and ultimate well-being. (Location 3229)
  • “I am at peace about it,” we say, and this means I am no longer striving, inwardly or outwardly, to save some outcome dear to me or to avoid one that I reject. (Location 3259)
  • Even in cases where, through no fault of my own, there must be a struggle between me and others, there does not have to be a struggle within me. I may have to resist others, for some good reason, but even so, I do not have to make things come out right. I am not the one in control of outcomes. I do not have to hate those whose course of action I resist, or even get mad at them, and so I can always be at peace within myself as well as toward them. (Location 3276)
  • By contrast, it is the positive movement into love, joy, and peace, based on faith and hope in God, that eliminates the destructive feelings or at least eliminates them as governing factors in our lives. We do not go at the change the other way around, trying first to root out the destructive feelings. That is the common mistake of worldly wisdom and of much “religion” on such matters. But we know that in being with Jesus the destructive feelings, with their actions, will drop off us as we increasingly see that “with thee is the fountain of life,” and come to realize that “in thy light shall we see light” (Psalm 36:9, KJV). (Location 3308)

Some Things We Can Do

  • For many of us, just coming to honest terms with what our feelings really are will be a huge task. (Location 3326)
  • Our ordinary lives and our religious associations are so permeated with insincere expressions of love, often alongside contempt and anger, that it is hard not to feel forced into hypocrisy in some situations. But we can learn to avoid it, and we shall immediately begin to see what a huge difference that alone makes. (Location 3328)
  • In general, the task, once we have given ourselves to Christ, is to recognize the reality of our feelings and agree with the Lord to abandon those that are destructive and that lead us into doing or being what we know to be wrong. This he will then help us with. We may need to write out what those feelings are in a “letter to the Lord,” or perhaps confer about them with a wise Christian friend who knows how to listen to us and to God at the same time. (Location 3334)
  • Satan uses feelings to captivate us today by making them more important to our lives than they really are, as well as by inducing much false guilt about what we do and do not feel. (Location 3362)

CHAPTER 8TRANSFORMING THE WILL (HEART OR SPIRIT) AND CHARACTER

  • the condition of our minds is very much a matter of the direction in which our will is set. (Location 3444)
  • Will alone cannot carry us to change. But will implemented through changing my thoughts and feelings can result in my becoming the kind of person who just doesn’t do that kind of thing anymore. (Location 3455)
  • Functionally, as we pointed out in chapter 2, the will is the executive center of the human self. From it the whole self or life is meant to be directed and organized, and must be if it is to be directed or organized at all. That is why we recognize the will to be the same as the biblical “heart” or center. (Location 3500)
  • It is also clear, then, that will is not the same thing as character, but character does develop from it, as specific willings become habitual and, to some extent, “automatic.” Character is revealed most of all in what we feel and do without thinking. But to a lesser extent it is revealed in what we repent of after thinking and what we then do as a result of repenting. Thought, feeling, and will give rise to character. (Location 3503)
  • Why doesn’t God just force us to do the things he knows to be right? It is because that would lose precisely that which he has intended in our creation: freely chosen character. (Location 3506)
  • The centrality of will to personhood is what makes it immediately and strongly precious and gives the person dignity. Dignity is a worth so great that it disallows exchanging a person for anything else. (Location 3508)
  • The question “What good can I bring about?” is replaced by “How can I get my way?” Manipulation, deception, seduction, and malice replace transparency, sincerity, and goodwill, as exaltation of self replaces submission and service to God. (Location 3526)
  • While he does not cause these things to happen, we now accept them as within his plan for good to those who love him and are living in his purposes (Romans 8:28). Irredeemable harm does not befall those who willingly live in the hand of God. What an astonishing reality! (Location 3651)
  • Beyond abandonment is contentment with the will of God: not only with his being who he is and ordaining what he has ordained in general, but with the lot that has fallen to us. At this point in the progression toward complete identification with the will of God, gratitude and joy are the steady tone of our lives. We are now assured that God has done, and will always do, well by us—no matter what! Dreary, foot-dragging surrender to God looks like a far-distant country. Also, at this point, duplicity looks like utter foolishness in which no sane person would be involved. Grumbling and complaining are gone (Philippians 2:14)—not painstakingly resisted or eliminated, but simply unthought of. “Rejoice evermore” is natural and appropriate (1 Thessalonians 5:16, KJV). (Location 3660)
  • We embrace our imposed circumstances, no matter how tragic they seem, and act for the good in a power beyond ourselves. (Location 3670)
  • Evil people who are genuinely focused can gain the great power they do over others because of the fact that good people and evil people alike are, for the most part, simply drifting through life. (Location 3701)
  • Who does not know, for example, that it is God’s will we should be without guile and malice? Then let us decide never to mislead people and never to do or say things merely to cause pain or harm. Let us decide that today, right now, we will not do such things. You might think that this is a very small part of identifying with God’s will. But in fact lying and malice are foundational sins. They make possible and actual many other sins. If you removed them, the structure of evil in the individual and in society would be very largely eliminated. From family fights and breakups to warfare, the human landscape would be transformed beyond recognition. (Location 3746)
  • A major service of spiritual disciplines—such as solitude (being alone with God for long periods of time), fasting (learning freedom from food and how God directly nourishes us), worship (adoration of God, as discussed in chapter 6), and service (doing good for others with no thought of ourselves)—is to cause the duplicity and malice that is buried in our will and character to surface and be dealt with. Those (Location 3757)
  • For example, our “righteous judgments” on others may, as we practice solitude or service, be recognized as ways of putting them down and us up. Our extreme busyness may be revealed as inability to trust God or unwillingness to give others a chance to contribute. Our readiness to give our opinions may turn out to be contempt for the thoughts and words of others or simply a willingness to shut them up. (Location 3768)

CHAPTER 9TRANSFORMING THE BODY

  • Even professing Christians, by and large, devote to their spiritual growth and well-being a tiny fraction of the time they devote to their bodies, and it is an even tinier fraction if we include what they worry about. (Location 3865)
  • A person caught up in rage or lust or resentment—or religious self-righteousness, for that matter—is basically one whose body has taken over and, at least for the moment, is totally running his or her actions or even life. Sometimes we say, “I just lost my temper.” “Temper” refers to the capacity to handle all kinds of situations and maintain one’s balance. It is in fact close to character, as when we say that someone is “acting out of character” or “is not himself (or herself) today.” (Location 4038)
  • For usual human beings in the usual circumstances, their bodies run their lives. Contrary to the words of Jesus in Matthew 6:25, life is, for them, not more than food, nor the body more than clothing. As a matter of simple fact, their time and energy are almost wholly, if not entirely, devoted to how their bodies look, smell, and feel, and to how they can be secured and used to meet ego needs such as admiration, sexual gratification, and power over others. (Location 4063)
  • A final example, for now, is overwork. In our current world this is a primary misuse of the body. It is now said that work is the new “drug of choice.” Often this is associated with excessive competition and trying to beat others out in some area of our common life. Sometimes this is just a matter of wearing our bodies out in order to succeed—often in circumstances that we regard (perhaps rightly) as imposed upon us by others. It is still a misuse of the body and a failure to work things out with God. God never gives us too much to do. He long ago gave us these words: “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2, KJV). (Location 4190)
  • When we come to the place where we can joyously “not do any work” (Exodus 20:10, KJV), it will be because God is so exalted in our minds and bodies that we can trust him with our lives and our world and can take our hands off of them. (Location 4214)
  • Rest is one primary mark of the condition of Sabbath in the body, as unrest is a primary mark of its absence. So if we really intend to submit our bodies as living sacrifices to God, our first step well might be to start getting enough sleep. Sleep is a good first use of solitude and silence. It is also a good indicator of how thoroughly we trust in God. (Location 4221)

CHAPTER 10TRANSFORMING OUR SOCIAL DIMENSION

  • By contrast, a small child not adequately received can actually die from it; or if it survives, it is very likely to be incapable of giving and receiving love in decent human relationships for the rest of its life. It will be perpetually “left out,” if only in its imagination. And in this matter, imagination can have the force of reality. Thus the final words of the Old Testament speak of one who must come and “restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers” to avoid a curse coming to rest upon the land (Malachi 4:6). (Location 4327)
  • unconnected to others at levels of our souls where lack of nourishment from deep connections with others means spiritual starvation and loss of wholeness in our every dimension. (Location 4336)

The Two Basic Forms of Evil in Relations to Others

  • The exact nature of the poison of sin in our social dimension is fairly easy to describe, though extremely hard to deal with. It has two forms. They are so closely related that they really are two forms of the same thing: of lovelessness, lack of proper regard and care for others. These two forms are assault or attack and withdrawal or “distancing.” (Location 4341)
  • If spiritual formation in Christ is to succeed, the power of these two forms of evil in our own lives—within our selves—absolutely must be broken. So far as it is possible, they must be eliminated as indwelling realities, as postures we take toward others. They also must be successfully disarmed as they come toward us. (Location 4344)
  • We assault others when we act against what is good for them, even with their consent. (Location 4353)
  • We withdraw from someone when we regard their well-being and goodness as matters of indifference to us, or perhaps go so far as to despise them. We “don’t care.” (Location 4358)

Love Deeply Rooted in Human Nature

  • That is the meaning of the church as the body of Christ, the members nourishing one another with the transcendent power that raised up Christ from the dead and is now flowing through each member to the others. (Location 4451)
  • And in order to do our part in the process of spiritual formation of social relations, we must deeply identify and understand what is wrong in our relations with others (whether that wrong is coming from us or toward us) and how it can be changed. Thus we have spoken of assault and withdrawal. (Location 4471)
  • every contact with a human being should be one of goodwill and respect, with a readiness to acknowledge, make way for, or assist the other in suitable ways. (Location 4504)
  • Isn’t the desperate need for approval that drives people so relentlessly today—causing them to go to foolish and self-destructive lengths to be “attractive” or at least to get attention—nothing but the echo of a lost world of constant mutual welcome and blessing in family, neighborhood, school, and work? (Location 4517)

Main Elements in Spiritual Formation of Our Social Dimension

Receiving God’s Vision of Our Wholeness in Him
  • The first main element in the transformed social dimension is for individuals to come to see themselves whole, as God himself sees them. (Location 4633)
  • Such a vision sets them beyond the wounds and limitations they have received in their past relationships to others. It is this vision of oneself from God’s point of view that makes it possible to regard oneself as blessed, no matter what has happened. (Location 4634)
Defensiveness Gone
  • The second element in the spiritually transformed social dimension is abandonment of all defensiveness. (Location 4646)
  • That is not to say we should impose all the facts about ourselves upon those close to us, much less on others at large. Of course we shouldn’t. But it does mean that we do not hide and we do not follow strategies for “looking good.” (Location 4651)
Genuine Love Predominates in Our Gatherings
  • each one would be exhibiting the following qualities (verses 9-21): Letting love be completely real. Abhorring what is evil. Clinging to what is good. Being devoted to one another in family-like love (philostorgoi). Outdoing one another in giving honor. Serving the Lord with ardent spirit and all diligence. Rejoicing in hope. Being patient in troubles. Being devoted constantly to prayer. Contributing to the needs of the saints. Pursuing (running after) hospitality. Blessing persecutors and not cursing them. Being joyful with those who are rejoicing and being sorrowful with those in sorrow. Living in harmony with each other. Not being haughty, but fitting right in with the “lowly” in human terms. Not seeing yourself as wise. Never repaying evil for evil. Having due regard for what everyone takes to be right. Being at peace with everyone, so far as it depends on you. Never taking revenge, but leaving that to whatever God may decide. Providing for needy enemies. Not being overwhelmed by evil, but overwhelming evil with good. (Location 4660)
Opening Our Broader Social Dimension to Redemption

CHAPTER 11TRANSFORMING THE SOUL

  • Fundamental aspects of life, such as art, sleep, sex, ritual, family (“roots”), parenting, community, health, and meaningful work, all are in fact soul functions, and they fail and fall apart to the degree that soul diminishes. (Location 4836)
  • Almost anything can be borne if life as a whole is meaningful. But in the absence of meaning, boredom and mere effort or willpower are all that is left. “Dead” religion or a dead job or relationship is one that has to be carried on in “meaningless” human routine. In boredom and carrying on by mere willpower, almost nothing can be endured, and people who are well off by all other physical and social standards find such a life unbearable. (Location 4845)
  • Fanaticism—in art, politics, sports, or religion, to name some of the main kinds—is the result of inherently meaningless lives becoming obsessed with performance and then trying to take all of their existence into it. Being “a fan of . . .” is treated as something deep and important. Because those who do this do not have a whole soul directing their lives toward good, rooted in God, they allow a “flow” they find outside themselves to take over their thoughts, feelings, behavior, and social relations. That flow intoxicates them. They absolutize the flow and no longer subject it to ordinary tests of truth, reality, and tried-and-true human values. Thus the winning of a championship by a city team can lead to looting, burning, and death. Romantic/sexual relationship can play the same obsessing role, as can “success,” leading to workaholic absorption. All of these are reflections of a nonfunctional or broken or recessive soul with inadequate resources to deal with the whole human life. (Location 4861)
  • As is usual in biblical themes, a little child that has been allowed to develop naturally and has been nurtured in all the aspects of its being gives us the best presentation of what a life flooded with a healthy soul looks like. (Location 4885)
  • What does it mean to lose your soul? Can you actually do that? Does it describe anyone you know? Well, what it means is that your whole life is no longer under the direction of your inner stream of life, which has been taken over by exteriors. (Location 4926)
  • Ignoring the soul is one reason why Christian churches have become fertile sources of recruits for cults and other religious and political groups. (Location 4960)
  • Jesus heard its cries from the wearied humanity he saw around him. He saw the soul’s desperate need in those who struggled with the overwhelming tasks of their lives. Such weariness and endless labor was, to him, a sure sign of a soul not properly rooted in God—a soul, in effect, on its own. (Location 4976)
  • What we most learn in Jesus’ yoke, beyond acting with him, is to abandon outcomes to God, accepting that we do not have in ourselves—in our own hearts, souls, minds, and strength—the wherewithal to make this come out right, whatever “this” is. (Location 4989)
  • Here is a simple fact: We live in a world where, by God’s appointment, “the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). (Location 5001)
  • A History of the Cure of Souls (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951). This is a thorough and careful study of what we today have forfeited by our neglect of the soul. (Location 5188)
  • Much, not all, of the antigovernment sentiment in the United States today is thinly veiled hatred of law and exaltation of brutal self-will. Thus it easily slips over into “righteous wrongdoing.” (Location 5195)

CHAPTER 12THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

  • The simple program of Christ for winning the whole world is to make each person he touches magnetic enough with love to draw others. FRANK LAUBACH, MAN OF PRAYER (Location 5203)
  • Several characteristics can serve as marks of those who have become established in their whole being as children of light. One is that whenever they are found to be in the wrong, they will never defend it—neither to themselves nor to others, much less to God. (Location 5423)
  • Indeed, when accused of being in the wrong when they are not, they will not defend themselves but will say only as much as is required to prevent misunderstanding of the good and to assist those who truly desire to know the facts of the case. (Location 5427)
  • Another of their characteristics is that they do not feel they are missing out on something good by not sinning. They are not disappointed and do not feel deprived. They do not fret because evildoers prosper, and they are not envious toward them (Psalm 37:1). They know that “better is the little of the righteous than the abundance of many wicked” (verse 16). (Location 5430)
  • If there is to be an accurate history written of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it will have to give prominence to the fact that the highest ethical teaching the world has ever been given was rejected by the intellectual leaders of humanity in favor of teachings that opened the way to forms of human behavior more degraded than any the world had seen to that point. (Location 5490)

CHAPTER 13SPIRITUAL FORMATION IN THE LOCAL CONGREGATION

  • IF WHAT WE HAVE SAID about the spiritual formation of the children of light is true, what would we expect to find in those gatherings of disciples of Jesus into local congregations, which we call “churches”? Of the actual churches around us, what would they do better to omit, and what do they need more of? A reasonable response might be that these local congregations would be entirely devoted to the spiritual formation of those in attendance—to the “renovation of the heart,” (Location 5587)
  • But what we see here is not an impossible dream, a hopeless idealization. It has been done and can be done now, if we turn our efforts under God in the right direction. And that direction would be one that makes spiritual formation in Christlikeness the exclusive primary goal of the local congregation. (Location 5621)
  • They, of course, love those contingencies, and they love the dear ones who have shared life with them within the contingent forms. And because the contingencies are dear to us—often there is much good associated with their past—we mistake them for the treasure of the real presence of Christ in our midst, and we spend most of our time concerned with the historical accidents or contingencies of our group, even trying to urge them upon others as essential to salvation, or at least as what is best for us and for them. No wonder we are distracted from the path of spiritual formation in Christ. (Location 5668)
  • Why Are Christians So Mean?” (Location 5702)
  • Christians are routinely taught by example and word that it is more important to be right (always in terms of their beloved vessel, or tradition) than it is to be Christlike. In fact, being right licenses you to be mean, and, indeed, requires you to be mean—righteously mean, of course. You must be hard on people who are wrong, especially if they are in positions of Christian leadership. They deserve nothing better. This is a part of what I have elsewhere called the practice of “condemnation engineering.”[3] (Location 5704)
  • But is there another way for local congregations to go? Can we avoid the vessel trap? Certainly we can’t avoid having vessels. And we must be tender to them, for that is a part of what it is to be human and finite. (Location 5726)
  • Simply stated, the local congregation that would adopt the “principles and absolutes” of the New Testament, with the natural outcome of being and producing children of light, has only to follow Jesus’ parting instructions: “As you go throughout the world, make apprentices to me from all kinds of people, immerse them in Trinitarian reality, and teach them to do everything I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, (Location 5732)
  • When setting out as Jesus’ apprentices, we will sharply encounter all of the harmful things that are “in” us: false thoughts and feelings, self-will, bodily inclinations to evil, ungodly social relationships and patterns, and soul wounds and misconnections. These our Savior and Teacher will help us remove as we strive forward through the many-sided ministries of him, his kingdom, and his people. All will be bathed in the Holy Spirit. (Location 5789)
  • it is treated as an astonishing irregularity in church contexts where apprenticeship is not assumed—that is, by and large, our present condition in our local congregations. We must recognize, sadly, that those congregations are not based on discipleship and that they assume one can be a Christian forever and never become a disciple in any New Testament sense. (Location 5797)
  • Rather, becoming a disciple is a matter of giving up your life as you have understood it to that point. Jesus made this starkly clear in Luke 14 and elsewhere. And without that “giving up,” you cannot be his disciple, because you will still think you are in charge and just in need of a little help from Jesus for your project of a successful life. But our idea of a “successful life” is precisely our problem. (Location 5813)
  • Note how in all these cases the word early has to be used. This is because the “vessel” that emerges in the course of a particular outbreak of radical discipleship gradually overwhelms the heavenly “treasure” it initially served to convey. That is a primary satanic strategy in defeating the cause of Christ on earth. Then we have yet another tradition on exhibit in the museum of Christian history. (Location 5818)
  • Usually that means an institution of some sort, perhaps a local church or a denomination, whose perpetuation and survival become the main concern of the people associated with it. Discipleship to Christ is either dropped altogether from the basic objectives or is redefined as devotion to the institution. (Location 5821)
  • It is, I gently suggest, a serious error to make “outreach” a primary goal of the local congregation, and especially so when those who are already “with us” have not become clearheaded and devoted apprentices of Jesus, (Location 5832)
  • the most successful work of outreach would be the work of inreach that turns people, wherever they are, into lights in the darkened world. (Location 5835)
  • A simple goal for the leaders of a particular group would be to bring every person in attendance to understand clearly what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and to be solidly committed to discipleship in their whole life. That is, when asked who they are, the first words out of their mouths would be, “I am an apprentice of Jesus Christ.” This goal would have to be approached very gently and lovingly and patiently with existing groups, where the people involved have not understood this to be a part of their membership commitment. (Location 5836)
  • A too-detailed technique for being and making disciples should be regarded with considerable wariness, because it will certainly presume to take too much into human hands. (Location 5843)
  • Another point should be added here, because it has been so commonly misunderstood. We are not talking about purifying the church, by getting all the “tares” out (Matthew 13:24-30). Even tares, real or apparent, are to be loved and served—and called to apprenticeship to Jesus. “Purifying” the church, on the other hand, has always been a part of the illusion of being perfectly “right.” (Location 5845)
  • the Lord is the only purifier of groups, and he has his own schedule for it. Our task is to be fruitful wheat and to cultivate others to be so. (Location 5851)
  • every condition that omits his presence as the essential redeeming factor is just another effort at substituting a vessel for the treasure. (Location 5868)
  • we should expect it to be a place where divine life and power is manifestly present to glorify God and meet the needs of repentant human beings. This would imply an atmosphere of honesty, openness, indiscriminate acceptance of all, and supernatural caring, with utter admiration for and confidence in Jesus. (Location 5884)
  • One of the worst mistakes that can be made in practical ministry is to think that people can choose to believe and feel differently. Following that, we will mistakenly try to generate faith by going through the will—possibly trying to move the will by playing on emotion. Rather, the will must be moved by insight into truth and reality. Such insight will evoke emotion appropriate to a new set of the will. That is the order of real inward change. (Location 5925)
  • We seek to know truth and we teach others: There is a God. This is his world, and we with it. This God is totally good and totally competent. He comes to us in Jesus Christ, whom we can totally trust. He gives us a book and a history, through which his Spirit will lead us to all we need to know about him and about us. (Location 5942)
  • must flatly say that one of the greatest contemporary barriers to meaningful spiritual formation in Christlikeness is overconfidence in the spiritual efficacy of “regular church services,” of whatever kind they may be. Though they are vital, they are not enough. It is that simple. (Location 5961)
  • Start with simple things like being genuinely kind to hostile people or returning blessing for cursing. Often we have plenty of opportunity to practice and refine these in our own families. (Location 5976)
  • No special talents, personal skills, educational programs, money, or possessions are required to bring this to pass. We do not have to purify and enforce some legalistic system. Just ordinary people who are his apprentices, gathered in the name of Jesus and immersed in his presence, and taking steps of inward transformation as they put on the character of Christ: that is all that is required. (Location 5991)

Postlude

  • Now, as you move into the process, you have to deal with your mind and redirect it so that the things that used to occupy it no longer occupy it. For example, entertaining oneself by watching television—that’s just something [where] one has to say, “I don’t really need that.” Or brooding over one’s finances or past mistakes or the future of the political situation. All those kinds of things. You have to say, “No, I’m going to live with God always on my horizon. He’s never going to leave.” (Location 6220)
  • So those are the kinds of things you begin to work on, and it moves amazingly fast once you start to do it, but it requires vision and decisiveness and then learning a few things which will help you do it. (Location 6227)
  • In the church today, we like to measure different things like our personality traits and our spiritual gifts. I’m wondering, is spiritual maturity measurable? DW: Not in a very precise way, like a quantified scale of some sort. But there are other ways. For example, just take one of the things that I use to check myself on: irritability. How difficult is it to irritate me? I have learned that that is tied to a lot of very deep things—that irritation comes out of overconcern and lack of rest and trying too hard to make something happen. And these are destructive things in your spirit. (Location 6236)
  • Here’s another kind of test: You’re driving down the street and you see a terrible accident. Where does your mind go immediately? If your mind is lifted to God and you are invoking the presence of his kingdom and his angels and his spirit and all that could be helpful, then you’re in a pretty good place. But if you don’t think to do that, that means somehow your mind isn’t in the right place. There are ways of telling. (Location 6241)