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 9—For the Sake of Others
Opening Prayer
Gracious God, from whom every family in heaven and on
earth is named, deliver me, I pray, from the easy habit of thinking that my
spirituality is something between you and me alone. It is so difficult to accept the idea that my
spiritual wholeness cannot be attained outside of my life with others. Help me to open my heart and spirit to what
you want to say to me in this chapter.
Help me to commit my relationships to you, that they may become channels
of your grace in my life and that I may become a channel of your grace for
others.
Robert Mulholland
Thoughts from last time?
Any
lingering thoughts from last time?
What
did the Lord show you about what’s hiding in your heart? Did any of those “vices” have something on
the flip side?
1. For the Sake of Others
What
comes to mind when you think about “for the sake of others”?
Mulholland
says that we are not meant to be “trophies of grace” in heaven. What does he mean?
Mark
12:30-31
Romans
13:9-10
I
Cor 13
Galatians
5:14
Ephesians
4:15-16, 5:2
Colossians
3:14
I
Thessalonians4:9-10
James
2:8
1 Peter 1:22; 4:8
I
John 3:10-14; 17-18; 23; 4:7-8, 11-12, 19-21
2. Being Like Christ
What
IS the image of Christ—the image we are being formed into…
Why
did He come?
We
can’t have wholeness without becoming “for others”.
If
we aren’t in the business of being in this with others, Mulholland says we have
“some kind of pathological formation that
is privatized and individualized, a spiritualized form of self-actualization.”
Why
is this attractive?
3. For others? Or for
myself?
Think
of the vices you wrote on your cards last week.
Were those stand-alone issues, or were they in relationship to God and
others?
These places in our lives are where we are UNlike
Christ—where we have our own agenda and are not yielded to the Spirit. We become controlling.
How
does “for the sake of others” manifest in the flesh vs. the Spirit?
4. A Litmus Test for Spiritual Growth
Examine
the quality and nature of your relationships with others.
Are
you more caring, patient, giving, compassionate than you were a year ago?
The
holisitic process of being formed in the image of Christ was designed to happen
in the midst of others. We don’t have a
training ground apart from that.
Our
relationships with others are not secondary to our relationship with God, but
fully joined together.
“Every
relationship has the potential of becoming the place of transforming encounter
with God.” Mulholland
5. The Rescue Society
What
does this sound like in your experience?
Brother, Sister, Let Me
Serve You
Richard
Gillard
1. Brother, sister,
let me serve you;
let me be as Christ to you;
pray
that I may have the grace to
let you be my servant too.
2. We are pilgrims
on a journey,
and companions on the road;
we
are here to help each other
walk the mile and bear the load.
3. I will hold the
Christlight for you
in the nighttime of your fear;
I
will hold my hand out to you,
speak the peace you long to hear.
4. I will weep when
you are weeping;
when you laugh I'll laugh with you;
I
will share your joy and sorrow,
till we've seen this journey through.
5. When we sing to
God in heaven,
we shall find such harmony,
born
of all we've known together
of Christ's love and agony.
6. Brother, sister,
let me serve you;
let me be as Christ to you;
pray
that I may have the grace to
let you be my servant too.
You can share our lessons
with others who can’t be here in person by referring them to http://christian-transformationblog.blogspot.com
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