Quotes About Transformation

You see, the goal of the Christian life is not simply to get us into heaven, but to get heaven into us!

When we despair of gaining inner transformation through human powers of will and determination, we are open to a wonderful new realization: inner righteousness is a gift from God to be graciously received. The needed change within us is God's work, not ours. The demand is for an inside job, and only God can work from the inside. We cannot attain or earn this righteousness of the kingdom of God; it is a grace that is given.

We pass from thinking of God as part of our life to the realization that we are part of his life.

Martin Luther declares that the life of the Christian should be one of daily repentance. Daily we confess, daily we repent, daily we "turn, turn, 'til we turn 'round right." The Prayer of Tears is the primary aid to our turning.

Life with God will overflow any attempts to compartmentalize or contain it. It is not just for those who are 'spiritually inclined.' We are made to live with God at the very center of our lives, transforming our thoughts, actions, decisions, relationships, vocations, communities, and social structures.

Through prayer and study, worship and service, we regularly digest God's word into the core of our being, where it feeds and transforms us. Continue

In his excellent little book entitled Freedom from Sinful Thoughts Heini Arnold writes, "We…want to make it quite clear that we cannot free and purify our own heart by exerting our own 'will.'"3

The primary purpose of prayer is to bring us into such a life of communion with the Father that, by the power of the Spirit, we are increasingly conformed to the image of the Son.

genuinely long for abilities that are beyond yourself in order to face the demands of everyday life patiently and wisely. You—I—we—would love to have the inner resources to replace deep, destructive habits of thought with even deeper, life-giving habits of mind and heart and spirit.

To pray is to change. Prayer is the central avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.

Solitude is both a "vacation with God" and a "furnace of transformation." "The

Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, "Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself."6 Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort.

Remember, God is working, always working, to form us and conform us and transform us into the image of Christ.

One caution: our souls will never grow in God if we read the Bible solely to get ammunition to defend ourselves or to defeat others. No. We read the Bible to be fed. We read it to be converted, to be strengthened, to be taught, to be rebuked, to be counseled, to be comforted. As we sit under the Bible for sustained periods, we will be formed by the experience.

God is working, always working, to form us and conform us and transform us into the image of Christ. God is intent upon this forming, conforming, transforming process. And God invites us to participate in this process by means of interactive relationship.

Prayer catapults us onto the frontier of the spiritual life.

Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself."6 Let us be among those who believe that the inner transformation of our lives is a goal worthy of our best effort. I: The Inward Disciplines

Real prayer is life creating and life changing.

God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us. The

We must always remember that the path does not produce the change; it only places us where the change can occur. This is the path of disciplined grace. There

Discipline is to present us before grace, it does not produce grace to make sense.

Without the cross the Discipline of confession would be only psychologically therapeutic. But it is so much more. It involves an objective change in our relationship with God and a subjective change in us. It is a means of healing and transforming the inner spirit.

Reading the Bible for spiritual transformation is not a one-sided endeavor: it is a dialogue of human spirit and Holy Spirit.

Our world is hungry for genuinely changed people. Leo Tolstoy observes, "Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself."6