What I do not like about "spiritual formation" by Willard. Part One.
Quote:
From here we manage our lives as best we can, utilizing whatever resources of understanding, emotion and circumstance are available. It is here we stand before God and our conscience
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As Christians we shouldn't lean on OUR understanding nor should we rely on our emotions. We are to overcome our circumstances.
Prov 3:
5 Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
We are to ask the HS to give us wisdom.
1Co 1:19
For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
1Co 2:4
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5
That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
2 Thess 1:
4 So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure:
We are to stand in faith, regardless of our circumstances.
Quote:
Within the invisible dimension of the person, and right at its conscious center, lies the human spirit. "God is Spirit," the creative will that creates and governs the universe, and "spirit" is the creative element in human nature, "the image of God in man. The human spirit is primarily what we today call "will," the capacity of choice and resolution, and what biblically and traditionally is called "heart."
This is wrong. We are body, mind, and spirit. According to this: our conscious center is our spirit. No our center is our mind. This is where we made our decisions, not our spirit.
When we are born we have a carnal mind. Our carnal mind is not and can not be "the image of God in man"
Romans 8:
6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
When we are born again, our spirit changes, but our mind is still carnal.
1 Corinthians 3:
1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
How do we change our minds? By renewing them with the Word of God
Romans 12:
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
and meditating on THE WORD not A WORD.
1 Titus 4:
13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.
When we are born we follow after the flesh(body). We are captive to the flesh. Even Paul says that because of the flesh he finds himself doing that which he doesn't wish to do.
Romans 7:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
This article is false. When we are born again, our flesh is at war with our spirit. What makes the difference is the mind. We are to renew our minds on the Word and to meditate on the Word in order to be able to defeat the flesh.
This paragraph has put the spirit and the mind as one of the same. According to it we are spirits are and have always been "the image of God in man". This is just false.
According to this paragraph we reform our minds/spirits, it doesn't take into account that we have to be born again and that our spirit changes when we are born again.
The Article
posted by Star @ 12:43 PM
