Chapter 4
The Ruined Soul's Reality
We must understand the soul in its ruined condition before we can grasp how it must be delivered and reformed. One of the greatest obstacles to effective spiritual formation is failing to acknowledge the reality of the human situation as it affects everyone.
Everyone undergoes spiritual formation - their spirit is formed, shaping their entire being. This isn't just for religious people; no one escapes it. Even the most hardened criminal has had a spiritual formation, becoming a certain kind of person. The path our formation takes determines whether it's good or bad.
As C.S. Lewis powerfully noted, every person we encounter will eventually become either a creature we'd be tempted to worship or "a horror and a corruption" only seen in nightmares. "There are no ordinary people," he reminds us - we're all immortals in the making.
Paradoxically, it's the inherent greatness of human beings that makes our ruined condition so horrifying. If we were insignificant, our ruin wouldn't be so terrible. Even in its ruined state, a human being is regarded by God as immensely worth saving. Sin doesn't make us worthless, just lost - and in our lostness, we're still capable of strength, dignity, and heartbreaking beauty that can hide the horror we're becoming.
In our current thought world, the horror of sin is "hidden," making it unavailable as an explanation for life's failures. Those who should guide others are lost in speculations about "causes" of problems like failed marriages and addiction, while the real sources lie in choice - where sin dwells. Our social sciences stand helpless before human evil, unable to admit the warpedness of human will into "serious" conversation.
The biblical prophetic illumination of the human soul in its lostness must be humbly accepted as the only path to spiritual transformation. When Jeremiah says "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick," we must recognize that we are the ones described. Self-esteem cannot be our starting point because we're all in serious trouble. Denial is humanity's primary device for dealing with wrongness, institutionalized in our customs and interactions.
To be lost means to be out of place, omitted from where one belongs. When we are lost to God, we are not where we're supposed to be in his world and not integrated into his life. We become like misplaced keys - useless despite their inherent value. Being lost means we're not "partakers of the divine nature" and haven't "escaped the corruption in the world."
Chapter 5
The Path to Restoration
One of the amazing things about humans is our capacity for restoration - a restoration that somehow makes us more magnificent because we've been ruined. The key to this restoration lies in what Calvin called "self-denial" - not self-rejection, but an overall settled condition of life in God's kingdom better described as "death to self." This foundation is indispensable for Christian spiritual formation.
From the ruined soul's perspective, self-denial seems brutal because the ruined life must not be enhanced but replaced. We must simply lose our life - that ruined life most people complain about anyway. As Jesus said, "Whoever loses their life for my sake shall find it."
The paradox of self-denial is that only by losing our life can we finally do what we truly want. Those who surrender to God will have no desire to steal, lie or murder, but will joyfully choose truthfulness, helpfulness and sacrificial love. Their life becomes caught up in God's life - the mind set on the spiritual is "life and peace" because it lives from God and reaps eternal life.
Jesus uses shocking language about discipleship: we must prefer him over family and even our own life, carrying our cross like condemned criminals bearing the instrument of their execution. This teaching parallels losing and finding our lives - it's about comparative costs. Those not convinced that surrendering everything to Jesus is life's only real bargain cannot progress to total spiritual transformation.
Properly counting the cost means considering both losses and gains of all possible paths. When done honestly, the trials of discipleship appear as the only reasonable choice. The cost of non-discipleship is actually unbearable compared to the much smaller "cost of discipleship." While some pain exists as old attachments linger, spiritual formation gradually replaces them with new vision. We come to want to not want what we currently desire, finding ourselves happy to see old attachments go.
Self-denial is always surrendering a lesser, dying self for a greater eternal one - the person God intended in creating you. Jesus doesn't deny personal fulfillment but shows the only true way to it, keeping us from trading our divine birthright for temporary pleasures.
Chapter 6
The VIM Pattern of Transformation
Spiritual formation in Christ is the process by which one moves from self-worship to Christ-centered self-denial as a general condition of life in God's present and eternal kingdom. We must first establish that genuine transformation into Christlikeness can actually happen to us. This isn't obvious in today's context where Christian leaders themselves complain about how little difference exists between Christians and non-Christians.
Before examining transformation in specific dimensions of human life, we must understand the general pattern all effective personal transformation efforts must follow. The degree of success depends on how well we comprehend and intentionally conform to this pattern.
When learning a language like Arabic, we must have a clear vision of what speaking it would be like and why it's valuable. This vision must grip us, pulling everything else required along with it. Beyond vision, we need intention - conscious choice to make it happen. Projects of personal transformation rarely succeed by accident, drift, or imposition. We must initiate factors that bring the vision to reality through appropriate means. With clear vision, strong intention, and persistent application of means, the outcome will match our vision.
Alcoholics Anonymous demonstrates this pattern with higher stakes. The same elements apply: envisioning a desirable state (sobriety), making an intention to realize it, and applying means (the twelve steps and supporting arrangements) to fulfill that intention. AA's program, historically aligned with Christian traditions, works because it engages essential structures of the human self revealed by God.
We can remember this pattern with the acronym "VIM" - Vision, Intention, and Means. If we're to be spiritually formed in Christ, we must implement the appropriate vision, intention, and means. Without properly establishing and maintaining this VIM pattern, Christ simply will not be formed in us.
The widespread failure to attain Christian maturity stems from a fundamental issue: Christians aren't led into the Vision, Intention, and Means that would enable them to naturally progress toward Christlikeness. Instead, their inward condition remains substantially unchanged from non-Christians, leaving them constantly battling with themselves.
Chapter 7
Transforming the Mind
As we first turned away from God in our thoughts, so it is in our thoughts that the first movements toward heart renovation occur. Thoughts are where we must begin to change, as God's light first moves upon us through Christ's word, and the divine Spirit directs our will toward thoughts that can help us realign with God.
Our ultimate human freedom lies in selecting what our minds dwell upon - though not totally free, we have great responsibility here. Those who truly seek God will find Him making Himself known to them.
Thoughts encompass all ways we are conscious of things - memories, perceptions, beliefs, and reflections. They form the basic source of our life, determining our orientation and evoking feelings that frame our world and motivate actions. While we cannot directly choose our feelings, we can control them by directing our thoughts.
Ideas are general models of or assumptions about reality - patterns of interpretation historically developed and socially shared. More than mere beliefs, they're pervasive ways of thinking about and interpreting things, often operating without our awareness. Our idea system is a cultural artifact from childhood, creating a "symbolic reality" superimposed on material reality.
Christian spiritual formation requires recognizing in ourselves the idea systems of evil governing our present age and culture - the systems that constitute life away from God. Transformation largely involves replacing these evil idea systems with the idea system Jesus embodied and taught, and embracing the culture of God's kingdom. This represents a true passage from darkness to light.
Changing governing ideas, whether in individuals or groups, is one of the most painful experiences in human life. Genuine conversion is wrenching, rarely happening except through divine intervention, revolution, or something like mental breakdown. It can permanently damage intimate relationships, as Jesus forewarned.
Ideas and images form primary strongholds of evil in human life and society, determining how we interpret reality and even blinding us to what's plainly visible. Satan focuses his efforts on manipulating ideas and images rather than direct force - as demonstrated when he tempted Eve with the idea that God couldn't be trusted. Our concept of God is therefore the single most important thing in our mind.
Chapter 8
The Emotional Dimension
The transformation of our feelings is central to spiritual formation in Christ. Feelings are both a primary blessing and problem for human life - we cannot live without them yet can hardly live with them. In the restoration of individuals to God, feelings must be renovated: old ones removed or modified, and new ones installed or heightened.
Unlike thoughts which invite challenge, feelings live prominently in our lives, clamoring for attention and presuming their own justification. Feelings represent a kind of "contact" or "touch" that is simultaneously blind and powerful, giving us certainty that something is "there" while leaving its nature and purpose obscure.
No one can master feelings by simply confronting them with willpower in moments of temptation. This head-on resistance strategy fundamentally misunderstands how the human will works and often indicates a deeper decision to surrender. Those mastered by their feelings - whether anger, fear, sexual attraction, or wounded emotions - typically believe these feelings must be satisfied.
A crucial step in spiritual formation is sincerely desiring different feelings rather than just avoiding sin. This means wanting to not want what you currently desire, and wanting to want what you don't currently feel. Achieving this new vision of oneself requires openness to radical change, careful instruction, and divine grace.
Feelings encompass sensations, desires, and emotions - everything from warmth and hunger to compassion and delight in God. They move us and give us a sense of being alive. Without feeling, we lose interest in life and must carry on by mere exertions of will. This explains why people become dependent on substances and activities that provide feeling, even when harmful.
In a life transformed to be like Christ's, the dominant feelings are those associated with love, joy, and peace - the three fundamental dimensions of the fruit of the Spirit. These are not mere feelings but conditions of the whole person accompanied by characteristic positive feelings. They mutually interpenetrate one another and naturally express themselves in patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Chapter 9
The Will and Character
By now we're glimpsing what Christ-renovated people look like - their thought life centered on God's goodness and greatness, their feelings dominated by love, joy, and peace, supported by faith and hope. But these transformations of thought and feeling cannot exist in isolation; they require corresponding changes in other dimensions of our being.
The will (spirit, heart) has a special relationship with the mind. While the will depends on thoughts and feelings to make choices, our thoughts and feelings also depend crucially on our will. What we think and feel as adults is largely what we allow ourselves to think and feel, what we wish and seek to think and feel.
This creates a "back and forth" dynamic crucial for spiritual formation - while we can't change our thoughts and feelings in the moment of choice, we can change what will be available to us in future choices. This is why we're responsible for our character - that internal structure revealed by our long-term behavior patterns.
Character can be changed, which is what spiritual formation is about. When we harm others through actions like speaking in anger, merely resolving "not to do it again" is ineffective. Will alone cannot create change, but will implemented through changing thoughts and feelings can transform us into people who don't do such things.
What characterizes a will transformed into Christlikeness? Jesus provided the pattern: "He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him." Similarly, Paul declared, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me."
Single-minded and joyous devotion to God and his will is what the will transformed into Christlikeness looks like. This becomes our character when it governs every dimension of our being. How far this is from the usual human will - a place of chaotic duplicity and confusion, shrouded in destructive habits!
Our will is that dimension of our being by which we become an underivative presence and source in the world. What comes from it comes from nothing else but us. This radical creativity makes each person absolutely unique and irreplaceable.
Chapter 10
The Body in Spiritual Formation
Spiritual transformation into Christlikeness requires that our body increasingly becomes poised to do good and refrain from evil. For good or evil, the body lies right at the center of the spiritual life - a strange combination of words to most people. While the human body often serves as a primary barrier to conformity to Christ, this was never God's intent. The body is not inherently evil, yet it frequently hinders people from doing what they know to be right.
Our body is fundamentally good - God made it for good. This is why Jesus's way is so relentlessly incarnational. The body should be cherished and properly cared for, not as our master but as God's servant. For most people, however, their body governs their life, which creates the central problem in spiritual formation.
Human ruin comes from placing oneself at the center of one's universe instead of God, which naturally leads to worship of the body and a life of sensuality. The body becomes our primary source of gratification and chief instrument for getting what we want - a perversion of God's intended role for the body that results in "death" and alienation from God.
From one essential perspective, our body and physical objects are potential energy. To possess and access that energy is the constant human goal and problem. We liberate energy from various sources to accomplish our purposes. But our own body is unique: it's the only body whose energy is directly accessible to us by choice.
Our body is the original place of our dominion and responsibility, through which we receive a place in time, space, and human history. It provides us with family, gender, language, culture, and talents. As we extend our "kingdom," we take on voluntary aspects of identity, first mastering our own body, then influencing other bodies around us.
The transformation of the body is absolutely essential to Christlikeness. When our heart comes to new life in God, the old "programs" continue running contrary to our new heart, primarily in our body and its members. Sin dwells in our flesh, with sinful passions at work in our bodily parts. Though our identity has shifted to God's gift of new life, the transitional state means we may do things we hate. But the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus offers liberation from sin's force in our bodily parts.
Chapter 11
Our Social Dimension
The natural condition of human life is reciprocal rootedness in others. We need assurance that others are for us to achieve stable, healthy living. When this "for-ness" is present, human "circles of sufficiency" emerge - from mother and child to larger family units. Yet these circles are fragile at the merely human level, always dependent on larger contexts for support. Ultimately, every human circle needs rootedness in the only truly self-sufficient circle - that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Most people know the pain of rejection - being left out or unwelcome. The parent-child relationship, while potentially our most perfect circle of sufficiency, can also inflict the deepest wounds. Children fully received by their families develop a rootedness that sustains them throughout life, even after loved ones are gone. Conversely, children not adequately received may die from neglect or become incapable of healthy relationships.
When addressing spiritual formation of our social dimension, we must start from a place of woundedness, as nearly everyone has been injured in relationships. The poison of sin in our social dimension takes two closely related forms of lovelessness: assault (attack) and withdrawal. These forms are so intertwined they're really two aspects of the same thing. Most people accept these as simply "reality," never imagining life without them.
Spiritual formation is always profoundly social - never merely private. Anyone who thinks it's "just between me and God" has misunderstood both God and self. Everything between me and God affects who I am, modifying my relationship with everyone around me. Jesus gave a clear mark of spiritual formation under his guidance: we become people who love one another.
The profound good news isn't just that God loves us - even mean people can love someone for special reasons. Rather, God IS love, sustaining his love for us from his basic reality as Love, which dictates his Trinitarian nature. God is a sweet society of love where the three persons complete a social matrix of loving, being loved, and shared love.
Chapter 12
The Soul's Transformation
What runs your life at any moment is your soul - not external circumstances, thoughts, intentions, or feelings. The soul correlates, integrates, and enlivens everything in the various dimensions of the self. It's the life-center that regulates what occurs in each dimension and how they interact with each other and respond to surrounding events. The soul lies almost totally beyond conscious awareness, yet fundamentally governs our lives.
The man in Psalm 1 exemplifies a soul properly ordered under God. He doesn't determine his actions by godless thinking or position himself where wrongdoing is necessary. Instead, he delights in God's law - not merely follows it, but loves it, is thrilled by it, and meditates on it constantly. The result is a flourishing life, like a tree planted by water canals that bears fruit in season with ever-green foliage.
For most people, this ideal arrangement of life under God remains only partially realized. Many find it an impossible dream as their souls run amuck and their lives fall into chaos. "Dead in trespasses and sins," they live from incoherent dreams and illusions. Enslaved to desires, bodily habits, or blinded by false ideas and misinformation, their souls cannot find consistent truth or harmoniously pursue what is good.
Of all dimensions of human being relevant to spiritual formation, the soul is by far the most controversial and inaccessible today. Psychology - ironically named as the "theory of the soul" - rejected it while trying to develop into a "scientific" understanding of humans. Yet despite this academic rejection, "soul" has become almost as attention-getting as "sex" in popular culture.
The first essential step in spiritual formation is to be mindful of our soul and deal with it regularly and intelligently. Unfortunately, in contemporary Western Christianity, there's very little serious concern about the soul from pulpits or educational programs. Some conservative churches still mention "saving" the soul, but once "safe," it's treated as needing no further attention.
Jesus saw desperate need in those struggling with overwhelming tasks - a sure sign of souls not properly rooted in God. His greatness of soul made meekness and lowliness natural for him. Being in his yoke isn't taking on more crushing labor, but learning to use his strength with ours to bear our load and his. We find his yoke easy because, in learning from him, we've found rest to our soul - rest in God. My soul is at peace only when it is with God, as a child with its mother.
Chapter 13
The Light of the World
Paul instructs believers that they were once darkness but are now light in the Lord, calling them to walk as children of light. This light produces fruit consisting of goodness, righteousness, and truth, which verifies what pleases the Lord. Christ's simple program for winning the world is to make each person he touches magnetic enough with love to draw others.
Human life's significance must be either very small or very great. From a natural perspective, it's minuscule - human ancestors appeared at 11:59 PM on earth's 24-hour clock, with civilization merely a flashbulb pop at midnight. Yet biblically, human history serves to form an immense community from every nation who will be a kingdom of priests under God, governing earth and reigning eternally with him.
The children of light differ primarily in their inner life. Their thought life centers constantly on God, dwelling on His greatness and loveliness in Christ. Their minds fill with biblical expressions of God's nature while not dwelling on evil. Emotionally, they're characterized by love - for good things, people, and their own lives. Joy and peace accompany them even in suffering.
Their will is habitually attuned to goodness, caring little about getting their own way, regarding others as more important than themselves. Their bodies have come over to the side of their will, poised to do good automatically rather than stumbling into wrong before they can think. Their bodies even look different - fresh, quietly strong, transparent, and rested.
In their social relations, they are completely transparent, walking in goodness without need for darkness, achieving genuine fellowship with others, especially fellow apprentices of Jesus. Because of their confidence in God, they don't manipulate others. They are noncondemning while refusing to participate in evil, knowing how to "be there" without sharing in wrongdoing. Their soul reveals all these qualities flowing effortlessly from within, not through constant striving but from a soul at home in God.
The most common mistake believers make when approaching passages about children of light is assuming we must do all these glowing things without being transformed within. They think we must act against our own inclinations while our heart, soul, mind, and strength remain opposed to God. This despair is justified because such an approach would be impossible.
To the untransformed person, evil still looks attractive, and God's law appears hateful. But as Jesus trains and cleanses us, this reverses - God's law becomes "sweeter than honey" and sin appears stupid and repulsive. Our resistance to sin then flows from seeing its true nature, not from fear of punishment.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that a virtuous and happy life is available to all. When asked what message he gave to his multitudes of hearers, John Wesley replied that he would make them "virtuous and happy, easy in themselves and useful to others." He preached "the religion of love" that enables all who receive it to "enjoy God and themselves," becoming "lovers of all; contented in their lives" and facing death with calm assurance of victory through Christ.
