Renovation of the Heart
Transforming the Will (Heart or Spirit) and Character (4|4)
Pages 159-162
• Getting Free from Entanglement
• The Role of Spiritual Disciplines Here
• Sweet Will of God
TOGETHER read the devotional and the scripture.
INDIVIDUALLY take notes in your journal on what stands out.
John 14:21 (NIV) “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Romans 13:8-10 (NIV) Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
TOGETHER pray for one another.
INDIVIDUALLY answer the questions in your journal - process your devotional notes and pray.
Getting Free from Entanglement
“Who does not know, for example, that it is God’s will we should be without guile or 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 actually 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. ”
Do you know anyone who cannot tell the difference between desire and will, and hence does not know how to oppose his or her own desires?
The Role of Spiritual Disciplines Here
”Truly becoming one who wills above all to act with the kingdom of God and to have his kind of goodness (Matthew 6:33 NIV “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well”.) will not happen overnight. But upon a path of clear intention and decision, with appropriate spiritual disciplines and accompanying grace to illuminate and correct us when we fail, it is not as far away as one would suppose. The duplicities, entanglements, and evil intents that infect our will can be clarified and eliminated as we keep our eyes on Jesus, who initiated and perfects our faith.”
Does it make sense to you that spiritual disciplines could retrain the will and reform character?
Sweet Will of God
“To succeed in identifying our will with God’s will is not, as is often mistakenly said, to have no will of our own. Far from it. To have no will is impossible. It would be to not even be a person. Rather, it is for the first time to have a will that is fully functional, not at war with itself, and capable of directing all of the parts of the self in harmony with one another under the direction of God.”
Do you agree? Is this possible?
“When through spiritual transformation we have in some measure come to know the well-kept heart in real life, we experience it as a gift of grace, no matter how hard we may have had to struggle in the process of growing into it. And it is a gift in which we find, precisely, ourselves, as Jesus taught: Matthew 10:39 (NIV) ‘Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.’”
What would it be like for you to be “wholly lost” in the will of God?
EXTRA READING:
“Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”
Holocaust survivor Corrie ten Boom (1892 - 1983)