Galatians 5:22-25 “But the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who
are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”
Being uncertain times or
trying times, my pastor Obie’s concern for loss of the Great Omission in our
society becomes painfully evident and the necessity for discipleship ministry
merges crystal clear. In reading Dallas Willard’s book on the making Disciples
of Jesus Christ, the elements and attitudes of the disciple are laid out and
explained within the context of spirituality and holiness for our understanding
and applicable knowledge.
Ephesians 5:8-11 “For
you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as
children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in
all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to
the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of
darkness, but rather expose them.”
Willard explains that the
fruit of the Spirit simply is the inner character of Jesus himself. It is
“Christ formed in us” It is “fruit” because like the fruit of trees or vines,
it is an outgrowth of what we have become, not the result of a special effort
to bear fruit. And we have become “fruitful” in this way because we have
received the presence of Christ’s Spirit and now that indwelling Spirit,
interacting with us, fills us with godly love, joy peace, patience, kindness,
goodness faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You can not buy this
fruit, earn it, or hold it. To be possessed of the fruit of the Spirit is to
have rich resources for sustaining and enhancing a faith-full life and for
growth in all dimensions of inward and outward grace.
The human being is not an
instinctual animal that naturally develops what is required for its existence.
It must be taught, and primary to what is taught (and caught) are the inner
conditions of life (thoughts, emotions, intentions, etc.) that make social
existence possible and enable the individual to hope for a life that is good.
The Christian gladly respects what is good wherever it is found. If we cannot
afford to be generous, we possess little. The Way of Christ does not dodge or
deny facts, but just the opposite: it appeals to facts and urges everyone to do
the same.
The soul is the spiritual,
rational and immortal substance in man, mind, will and emotion which
distinguishes him from brutes or beast; that part of man which enables him to
think and reason, and which renders him a subject of moral government of good
and bad or right and wrong. The immortality of the soul is a fundamental
article of the Christian system. Such is the nature of the human soul that it
must have a God, an object of supreme affection. Willard states that it is
natural that we should turn to psychology to understand the soul and try to
meet its needs, for psychology is the study of the soul. From the Greek word “Psuche”
meaning: breath of life; the vital force which animates the body and
shows itself in breathing as that in which there is life. A living being, A
living soul. Indeed, the soul. The seat of the
feelings, desires, affections, aversions: (our heart and
soul). Psychology is called to the depths of the human being by the very
subject of its inquiry – the realities of the soul. The spiritual life of the human being, even at
its most elevated and ecstatic, is a psychological reality, though it is not
only that.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 “To
everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under
heaven.”
Secular psychological
teachings (the study of the mind) and practices that simply omit the realities
of spiritual formation, or else substitute for them, leave processes that do
not do justice to life in the Kingdom of God. The transformation of the inner
self into Christ-likeness cannot be achieved by anything other than the life of
God in the soul, and anything short of this, however good and proper it may be
in its place, will not be enough to meet the deepest needs of the human heart
or satisfy the mind, the will and the emotions of the soul. It will leave life
adrift.
Blessings in Christ, Brian
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