Quotes About Transformation

spiritual formation is a matter of reworking all aspects of the self.

Third, the "correcting" to be done is not a matter of "straightening them out." It is not a matter of hammering on their wrongness and on what is going to happen to them if they don't change their ways. It is a matter of restoration. The

What transforms us is the will to obey Jesus Christ from a life that is one with his resurrected reality day by day, learning obedience through inward transformation.

he ruined soul must be willing to recognize its own ruin before it can discover how to enter a different path

Change only comes through breakdown or revolution.

IF WE ARE CHRISTIANS simply by believing that Jesus died for our sins, then that is all it takes to have sins forgiven and go to heaven when we die. Why, then, do some people keep insisting that something more than this is desirable? Lordship, discipleship, spiritual formation, and the like?

Yet, without this realization of our utter ruin and without the genuine revisioning and redirecting of our lives, which that bitter realization naturally gives rise to, no clear path to inner transformation can be found. It is psychologically and spiritually impossible.

For our Christian groups and their leaders, it means that there is a simple, straightforward way in which congregations of Jesus' people can, without exception, fulfill his call to be an ecclesia, his "called out" ones: a touch point between heaven and earth, where the healing of the Cross and the Resurrection can save the lost and grow the saved into the fullness of human beings in Christ.

When we see Jesus as he is, we must turn away or else shamelessly adore him.

They bring the life of the kingdom to other people. They bring that life in themselves. That's what Jesus himself said, and that's what he did. When he came, he said, "Repent for the kingdom of the heavens is at hand." What was at hand? The kingdom that was in him. As people looked at him and listened to him, they realized that the kingdom of God was there and that it was available to them, and they became disciples of Jesus because of that.

the focus of spiritual formation is the formation of our spirit.

Heroism, generally, is totally out of place in the spiritual life, until we grow to the point at which it would never be thought of as heroism anyway.

Spiritual formation in Christ is the process whereby the inmost being of the individual (the heart, will, or spirit) takes on the quality or character of Jesus himself.

What God gets out of our lives—and, indeed, what we get out of our lives—is simply the person we become. It

great deal of what goes into "training them [us] to do everything I said" consists simply in bringing people to believe with their whole being the information they already have as a result of their initial confidence in Jesus—even if that initial confidence was only the confidence of desperation.2

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?

we are not only asking to be forgiven, we are asking for guidance and wisdom and strength to respond differently tomorrow.

He teaches us how to be in prayer what we are in life and how to be in life what we are in prayer.

plan for putting to death or mortifying

the governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be "Christians" forever and never become disciples.

We settle back into de facto alienation of our religion from Jesus as a friend and teacher, and from our moment-to-moment existence as a holy calling or appointment with God. Some will substitute ritual behavior for divine vitality and personal integrity; others may be content with an isolated string of "experiences" rather than transformation of character.

and worry are worthless—indeed, vain—emotions. If you are frightened or afraid, there is no use feeling guilty about it. What you need to do is fix your mind upon God and ask him to fill your mind with himself. And as your mind is transformed, your whole personality will be transformed, including your body and your feelings. The transformation of the self away from a life of fear and insufficiency takes place as we fix our minds upon God as he truly is.

He calls us to him to impart himself to us. He does not call us to do what he did, but to be as he was, permeated with love. Then the doing of what he did and said becomes the natural expression of who we are in him.

If we are to be transformed, the body must be transformed, and that is not accomplished by talking at it.