Renovation of the Heart
Transforming the Will (Heart or Spirit) and Character (3|4)
Pages 155-159
• From Surrender to Drama
• From Abandonment to Contentment - and Participation
• “To Will One Thing”
• The Power of Untamed Desire
TOGETHER read the devotional and the scripture.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out.
Philippians 2:14-15 (NIV) Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky.
1 Thessalonians 5:16 (NIV) Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
Hebrews 12:1-2 (NIV) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
James 1:14 (NIV) Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
James 4:1-3 (NIV) What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your devotional notes and pray.
From Surrender to Drama
”When we surrender our will to God we consent to his supremacy in all things. We recognize his supremacy intellectually, and we concede to it in practice - though we still may not like it, and parts of us may still resist it. - The center of the self, the heart or spirit, is now willing for God to be God - even if with little hope or enthusiasm. Perhaps it is only willing to be made willing. But it is for lack of this minimal identification with God’s will that multitudes of people are unable to understand the truth of Jesus. (John 7:17 “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own.”). Such persons are not willing to do His will, and hence God does not open their understanding, and they cannot do so. - But if grace and wisdom prevail in the life of the one who only surrenders to God’s will, he or she will move to abandonment. Then the individual is fully surrendered.”
How does drama - a dramatic life - arise out of surrender to God’s will?
”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!”
What does this mean and what is your response?
From Abandonment to Contentment - and Participation
“Our tiny “willpower” is not the source of our strength. We hardly notice any exercise of it, though it is fully dedicated to carrying out God’s purposes in every respect. - The strongest human will is always the one that is surrendered to God’s will and acts with it. - This progression toward full identification of our will with God’s will is one that, perhaps for most people, may not be fully realized in this life. But that does not really matter. It is a progression that is there for us to enter into now, through the power at work within us as disciples of Jesus Christ.”
What is your response to this statement?
“To Will One Thing”
“In our fallen world, very few people live with a focused will, even a will focused on an evil. - The ‘CEO’ of the self has abandoned its post to other dimensions of the self and is dragged hither and thither by them. In our culture today the direction of the self is usually left to feelings; and the will, if it is recognized at all, is either identified with feelings or else regarded as helpless in the face of feelings. The cognitive side of the mind is hijacked to rationalize it all by producing or borrowing suitable ‘insights,’ usually lying ready to hand in surrounding culture.”
In what ways have you experienced (either yourself or someone you know) the cognitive side of the mind getting hijacked by feelings? What was the outcome?
The Power of Untamed Desire
“In the realm of the will there is something like the power of inertia in the physical realm. It is easier to do what you have done than what you have not, and especially than what goes contrary to what you have done. You tend to keep on doing what you have done; and the more so, the more you have done it. That is spiritual inertia.”
How have you experienced spiritual inertia? In what ways have you returned to or continued to do what is familiar - or repeated than to push and/or grow into something new?
“To justify itself in satisfying the desire, the will enlists the intellect to provide rationalizations, frequently so bizarre that they amount to selective insanity. Then, of course, the individual in question does and says things that make no sense to anyone. They are hypnotized by their evil desires. That is where the entanglements of the will with desire can lead and do lead.”
Have you seen firsthand the effects of the “entanglements” of desire on life?
EXTRA READING:
A Prayer by Henri Nouwen (1932 - 1996)
”Dear Lord, I will remain restless, tense, and dissatisfied until I can be totally at peace in your house. There is no certainty that my life will be any easier in the years ahead, or that my heart will be any calmer. But there is the certainty that you are waiting for me and will welcome me home when I have persevered in my long journey to your house.”