The Journey

 Invitation to a Journey ~ A Road Map to Spiritual Formation
M. Robert Mulholland & Ruth Haley Barton
plus
Notes and writings on Spiritual Formation from the
Institute for Spiritual Formation, Biola University


Lesson 3
Opening Prayer—Chapter 2—Being Formed

1.  Thoughts from last week?
·      How did our Life Map exercise influence the way you thought about your Journey?
·      Did it help you to see how spiritual formation is happening in your life?  How?

2.  Being Formed vs. Forming Ourselves
·      I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.  (John 15:5 NASB)

3.  Control
·      Why is control such a big issue for us?
·      What are some of the consequences of humans having control?
·      How can we give control over to God?

4.  On God—C. S. Lewis
On God
As a great Christian writer (George MacDonald) pointed out, every father is pleased at the baby’s first attempt to walk: no father would be satisfied with anything less than a firm, free, manly walk in a grown-up son. In the same way, he said, “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.”
I think every one who has some vague belief in God, until he becomes a Christian, has the idea of an exam or of a bargain in his mind. The first result of real Christianity is to blow that idea into bits. When they find it blown into bits, some people think this means that Christianity is a failure and give up. They seem to imagine that God is very simple-minded! In fact, of course, He knows all about this. One of the very things Christianity was designed to do was to blow this idea to bits. God has been waiting for the moment at which you discover that there is no question of earning a pass mark in this exam or putting Him in your debt.
Then comes another discovery. Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to his father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins.
From Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
Compiled in Words to Live By

5.  The Sanctification Gap--The distance between the Spiritual Ideal and where we                                                                   really are

Each person hears that “ideal” differently. Ex: “Love one another”

·      Enthusiasm--  The Great Challenge!  “I’m getting there!”
·      Work/Duty  “Another Spiritual Project”  Legalistic
·      Frustration.  30 years and no progress—“I’ll never get there.”  “I’ll just try to be a good person or drop out.”
Each person approaches this with shame and guilt.  We have all sinned.
What is the remedy?   Who can close the Gap?


Practice:

Prayers of Intention
To protect the heart from moralism and the flesh
To protect the heart from under-effort and the flesh
To open to the filling of the Spirit in all things and no longer be alone

1.  Prayer of Presenting Oneself as a Sacrifice (Rom. 12:1-2):  the spiritual discipline of presenting oneself to God as a living sacrifice, open to Him and His will in all things.
Prayer of Intention:  “Lord, I am here, I present myself to you.  Here I am, I open my heart to you.”
This protects the will from becoming asleep to the will and Person of God.

2.  Prayer of Recollection (Phil. 3:7-9):  the spiritual discipline of reminding the self of its true identity in Christ (full pardon, full acceptance) and “Christ in me” (that I am not alone).
Prayer of Intention: “God, whatever I do today, I want to do it in you.  I don’t want to do this alone, in my own power or as a way to hide and cover.  I don’t want to find my identity in  anything but Christ.  I am in Christ and that is my true identity. (confess any idolatry)
This protects the life from idolatry, false identities and moralism or making decisions from false guilt, shame in life in the power of the self.


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