Spiritual Growth - Willard

The following are excerpts from an excellent resource by Dallas Willard called "The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’ Essential Teachings on Discipleship." (HarperOne, 2006)

While the initiative in the revival and reformation of the soul originally comes from what lies beyond us, we are never merely passive at any point in the process. This is clear from the biblical imperatives to repent and to believe, and – for the person with new life already in them – to put off the old person and put on the new, to work out the salvation that is given to us, etc., etc. It is certainly true, as Jesus said to his friends, “apart from me you can do nothing”(John 15:5). But it is equally true for them that “If you do nothing, it will be without me.”
(150)

. . . Rather, I must learn and accept responsibility of moving with God in the transformation of my own personality. Intelligent and steady implementation of plans for change are required if I am to lose the incoherence of the broken soul and take on the easy obedience and fulfillment of the person who lives ever more fully within the Kingdom of God and the friendship of Jesus. (150)

. . . What is my plan? The answer to this question is, in general formulation: by practice of spiritual disciplines, or disciplines for the spiritual life. . . A discipline is an activity within our power – something we can do – that brings us to a point where we can do what we at present cannot do by direct effort. Discipline is in fact a natural part of the structure of the human soul, and almost nothing of any significance in education, culture, or other attainments is achieved without it. (150-151)

The aim of disciplines in the spiritual life – and, specifically, in the following of Christ – is the transformation of the total state of the soul. It is the renewal of the whole person from the inside, involving differences in thought, feeling, and character that may never be manifest in outward behavior at all. Indeed, solitude and silence are powerful means of grace. Bible study, prayer, and church attendance, among the most commonly prescribed activities in Christian circles, generally have little effect for soul transformation, as is obvious to an observer. If all the people doing them were transformed to health and righteousness by them, the world would be vastly changed. Their failure to bring about the change is precisely because the body and soul are so exhausted, fragmented, and conflicted that the prescribed activities cannot be appropriately engaged in and by and large degenerate into legalistic and ineffectual rituals. Lengthy solitude and silence, including rest, can make them very powerful.

But we must choose these disciplines. God will, generally speaking, not compete for our attention. If we will not withdraw from the things that obsess and exhaust us into solitude and silence, He will usually leave us to our own devices. (153-154)

Seeking was clearly, form the lives portrayed, a major part of life in Christ. The “doctrinal correctness alone” view of Christianity was, in practice, one of nonseeking. It was basically one of “having arrived,” not of continuous seeking, and the next essential stop on its path was heaven after death. . . Salvation by grace through faith was a life, not just an outcome, and the earnest and unrelenting pursuit of God was not “works salvation” but the natural expression of the faith in Christ that saves. Constant discipleship, with its constant seeking for more grace and life, was the only sensible response to confidence in Jesus as the Messiah. (217)