Our Bodies

“Most of what is called character consists in what our bodies are and are not “at the ready” to do in the specific situations we find ourselves in.” (Dallas Willard)


The proper retraining and nurturing of the body is absolutely essential to Christlikeness.

Willard instructs us that inclination to do what is wrong (temptation) resides primarily in my body. We can act or speak before we think. Our body parts can carry us away (James 3:5-6). Our bodies run our lives: we are almost entirely devoted to how our bodies look, smell, feel, and how I can use my body to be admired.

God created our bodies so that we could live a life devoted to God as we await our glorification and new bodies in the next life.

Body worship, body hatred, fear of what our bodies will do to us before we die are all coming from a perspective that there is no God. God says that our bodies are beautiful, holy, sacred and belong to him. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who indwells us. God created our bodies and gave them to us. Spiritual formation involves not just our hearts but our bodies as well.

Heart * Soul * Mind * Strength

 

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All of Me

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s comands and remain in his love.” (John 15:9-10)


Spiritual formation is foundational to living a Christian life that is pleasing to the Lord and worthy of his sacrifice and calling.

Spiritual transformation requires obedience. It requires intentionality on my part to do what the Lord commands, but it cannot be accomplished by depending on my will alone.

Spiritual transformation requires that I (heart, soul, thoughts, feelings, will) work together with the Holy Spirit in interaction with the grace of God to let God’s love change me in the core of my inner person.

Hungering for righteousness, longing and wishing for my attitudes, motivations, reactions, desires, and focused action to be beautiful and good, even Christ-like, won’t happen automatically while my attention is consumed in other things.

Spiritual transformation requires that I make love the central focus of my life. Jesus says, “Now remain in my love.” (John 15:9) Remain. Stay there. Don’t leave.

Love is the very least and the very most I can do.

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Is This Really Possible?

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” (John 15:11-12)


"Living a life of love," "experiencing complete joy"—not exactly the first characteristics that spring to mind as people outside of the church seek to describe us. Not exactly the first characteristics that spring to my mind either. Why? Why aren’t we full of love and joy?

Willard writes, "It's God's intention that our lives should be a seamless manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal. 5:22-23).

Is Willard right? Can we really get to a place in our lives where we experience God's joy from deep within that won’t be shaken by our circumstances? Not a pretense of joy, but a true sense of well-being and hope in the Lord always. Yes, I guess it is possible: Jesus taught us to abide in God's love, like a branch remains with the vine, "so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be complete." It must be possible to live in joy.

Why don’t we experience love, joy, peace, patience...every day?

Maybe we're not paying enough attention to our interior lives. For the fruit of the Spirit to naturally overflow in our lives, we must attend to matters of the heart: experiencing His love and receiving his grace. When we go on a spiritual retreat we can take long periods of time to experience his love and grace in these kinds of specific ways. A spiritual retreat is different from a vacation. It's not just time for us to get away from it all. The retreat is for the specific purpose of being with the Lord.

During a retreat we have time for spiritual exercises like practicing the presence of God, and letting the Word of Christ richly dwell in us, and spending time in solitude with the Lord and experiencing his divine love. Practical exercises can help us abide in his love.

Back home, if we take the time to be with him, and make these practices part of our daily life, we are able to stay connected with the Lord like a branch is connected with the vine. Through living as Christ taught us we open ourselves to receiving his grace so that we will exude in increasing measure the character of the Spirit of God and experience his life changing us from the inside out. At least that's the goal that the Lord Jesus has set before us.

“Be imitators of God as dearly loved children and live a life of love.” (Eph. 5:1)

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Watch and Learn

Spiritual formation is centered in loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving my neighbor as myself. As we are maturing in Christ, love for God and love for people should be increasingly developed in our hearts and more fully expressed in the ways we relate to people. Love is our message. (John 15-17)


A colleague, Janice Smith, responds to a need she hears with a desire to help. The rest of us offer to pray, but when she hears of a difficult life circumstance she asks, “Can we send a card, bring a meal, help financially?” Love lived. Passion every day. I want to be like her. I’m watching. Learning.

We can study Jesus to become like him. We can also study his followers to learn how to walk as Jesus walked.

Is there anyone you are watching?

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Nothing Else

Nothing else is required in life. He is my love.


I am so grateful for the love of God. I’ve been chosen by him. I’ve been welcomed. I couldn’t make it happen. I had no coercive power to force it. But here it is. Jesus loves me and what a gracious gift that is. It’s humbling. Beautiful. Gentle.

And for our love to be mutual, I must choose him—choose to make him my desire, the love of my life.

Staying in love every day is our goal. The fire of passion must be nurtured. Bible study, prayer with words, prayer without words, reflection, fellowship, times for solitude, silence, and being with the Lord – are all ways to tend the fire within.

I desire to nurture my relationship with the Lord so that I live passionately in love with him every day. I desire that my “work” is produced by my faith in Jesus, labor is prompted by my love for him, and endurance is inspired by hope in his love, and our future together.” (I Thessalonians 1:3).

“I have everything that I need.” (Psalm 23:1b)

Nothing else is required in life when Jesus is my love.

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Spread My Love

“Spread your love everywhere you go.” Mother Teresa


“Love for the Lord overflows into passionate living—loving those around me.

Jesus opened himself to receive his Father’s love to the point that he was filled up to overflowing. As he met people who were hungry and thirsty, some physically, most spiritually, he loved them. His love overflowed and embraced everyone he met.

My call is to love as Jesus loved.

Why does this sound like news to me today? Mother Teresa put it well, “Spread your love everywhere you go.”

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Christian Spirituality

“Christian spirituality is summed up in one word: love.”

We are called to be lovers. Not dispassionate, hardworking do-gooders. Not aloof academicians. Lovers.

Love is to be my singular focus, my all-consuming desire, my first thought in the morning, my last reflection in the evening, my prayer throughout the night. Every breath. Every heartbeat. Every thought. Every motive. Every act. LOVE.

Every day.

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Love and Do as You Will

Carlo Carretto writes: I have known the satisfaction of unrestrained action, and the joy of the contemplative life in the dazzling peace of the desert, and I repeat again St. Augustine's words: "Love and do as you will." Don't worry about what you ought to do. Worry about loving. Don't interrogate heaven repeatedly and uselessly saying, "What course of action should I pursue?" Concentrate on loving instead.

And by loving you will find out what is for you. Loving, you will listen to the Voice. Loving, you will find peace.

Love is the fulfillment of the law and should be everyone's rule of life; in the end it's the solution to every problem, the motive for all good.

"Love and do as you will."

This is the crux. When I love I can no longer do as I will.
When I love I am love's prisoner; and love is tremendous in its demands when it has God as its object, especially a crucified God. I can no longer do my own will. I must do the will of Jesus, which is the will of the Father.

And when I have learned to do his will (to love), I shall have fully realized my vocation on earth and I shall have achieved the highest stage a man can reach...if the will of God urges you to seek out the poor, to give up all you possess, or to leave for distant lands, what does the rest matter? Or if it calls you to found a family, or take on a job in a city, why should you have any doubts? "His will is our peace," says Dante. And perhaps that is the expression which best brings into focus our deep dependence on God.

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Pray or Act?

Pray or act? How do we know? Some advice from Carlo Carretto:

Live love, let love invade you. It will never fail to teach you what you must do.

Charity, which is God in us, will point to the way ahead. It will say to you "Now kneel," or "Now leave."

It is love which gives things their value. It makes sense of the difficulty of spending hours and hours on one's knees praying while so many need looking after in the world; and in the context of love we must view our inability to change the world, to wipe out evil and suffering.

It is love which must determine one's actions, love which must give unity to what is divided.

Love is the synthesis of contemplation and action, the meeting-point between heaven and earth, between God and humanity.

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God just wants my heart

How did the Lord use the retreat in your life?

"Taught me that God requires my love not my accomplishments for him. I was touched by the love he has for me. I needed this time alone so badly. The timing was perfect."

Track 2: "In a word- powerfully. He confirmed direction that he has been preparing me for. It was a great treat to have one-on-one time with Shirley and Betsy. I didn’t expect that and it was a huge blessing. Thank you team for the great sacrifice you each make to facilitate this event that so powerfully impacts those who come. May God bless you richly for your obedience and surrendered hearts."

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The Secret to the Spiritual Life

"The good tree," Jesus said, "bears good fruit." (Matthew 7:17)

Take care of the tree and it'll naturally produce good fruit. It makes no sense to start working on the fruit -- trying to make the apples sweeter, bigger, juicier. Take care of the tree, and you'll have good fruit.

Tend to my tree, and I'll produce good fruit.

Tend to my heart and I'll live a life of love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Is Jesus saying that if I tend to my heart, I'll be generous? If I tend to my heart, I'll experience self-control? Is that right?

I know that no amount of trying to be loving will make me loving. I can act as if I love you for a while, but that's not real love. Love has to come from within and flow out into my life. I can't be mad at you, and pretend "I'm fine, I'm happy, no problem" and call that love or joy or peace. It's not. It's pretending.

Good tree -- good fruit. Jesus is looking for us to be real. Authentic. Good fruit. No pretending.

How can we accomplish this? Jesus confirmed that all of the instruction in the Scriptures can be captured in the command, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. Why is that? Because, if we tend to our hearts' devotion, we'll produce good fruit. The Springs retreat is all about learning how to tend to our hearts.

How do we live the spiritual life? How do we increasingly have our thoughts, attitudes, desires transformed so that we are authentically good? Love the Lord your God...

Don't work on fixing the fruit. Tend to the tree. Good tree--good fruit. Tend to your heart.

And the second commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself."
First, tend to your heart -- Love the Lord your God. Then, in real, authentic ways, let the love of God overflow and in tangible ways...love others.

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Love

St. Anthony's Retreat Center in November

"I urge you...by the mercy of God to present yourself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual act of worship."

How can we ever present our lives as holy to the Lord? It's only through spiritual transformation of our inner being that we can begin to live this verse of Scripture.

What is "spiritual transformation"? For the Christian, it is the Spirit-driven process of forming the inner world of the human heart in such a way that it becomes more and more like the inner being of Christ. The degree to which spiritual formation in Christ is successful, is the degree to which our outer life becomes a natural expression of Jesus' teachings. The quality of our character, how we choose to conduct ourselves in public and in private, how we react to adversity, these are all external expressions of our internal spiritual transformation.

But this is where it gets tricky.

Because, if the goal of spiritual formation is obedience to Christ, and obedience to Christ is defined in terms of external expressions: what we should do (pray) and what we shouldn't do (hate)--we have a serious problem. When external behavior is the focus, the whole process is corrupted by legalism. Legalism merely increases the kind of "righteousness" that the Pharisees had; it doesn't spiritually transform us. The Pharisees' righteousness was corrupt and unacceptable to God.

True righteousness is seen in obedience that arises from an inner transformation accomplished through purposive interaction with the grace of God in Christ. It's more than an obedience that is merely focused on our external life. In fact, the external manifestations of obedience are not the point at all.

What was so offensive to Jesus about the supposed righteousness of the Pharisees was that it did not arise from a true love for HIM. Their motives were not to love the Lord and live to please Him because they were so grateful for His mercy and grace. They were motivated to look good, to have their colleagues totally impressed with their acts of righteousness, to earn God's acceptance by their stellar behavior.

The motivation underlying our obedience matters to God.

God desires genuine transformation of who I am through and through -- a transformation that begins, I believe, with hours and months of coming to know in ever deepening ways the unfathomable love of God for me, personally. I believe that at the heart of Christian spiritual formation is knowledge of how much God loves me. True spiritual formation arises from knowing his love, and then allowing our lives to be a response to his love. We love him and want to obey him--humbly aware of our need for his love and mercy, but desiring to please him as an expression of our adoration and worship.

At the Springs, we experience spiritual transformation as we open ourselves to receive the love of God, listen to Him and respond.

Heart. Soul. Mind. Strength.

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