We will become fully formed followers of Jesus who live intentionally seeking to share Jesus and invite others to join us in becoming fully formed followers of Jesus.
Dallas Willard, who wrote extensively on how Jesus transforms our lives reminds us that…
“The revolution of Jesus is in the first place and continuously a revolution of the human heart…[it] is a revolution of character, which proceeds by changing people from the inside through ongoing personal relationship to God in Christ and to one another.”
Dallas Willard, R
enovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ (Colorado Springs, CO.: Navpress, 2002), 15.
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like. But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.” (James 1:22–25, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language)
Act on what you hear! Sounds so simple, yet can be so complicated. As we are thinking about how our prayer life can be a tool to allow God to use as He transforms us, how do we go about asking God to transform our will – creating in us a desire to act on what we hear?
Remember Jesus’ words to His closest followers prior to the betrayal, arrest, and trial :
“You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.” (John 15:16, HCSB)
The very heart of this passage might best be discovered just a few sentences earlier in this same talk:
““I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me.” (John 15:5, HCSB)
The simple answer to how God uses prayer to transform our will is this: Abide in Christ. THE most important aspect of our life is our relationship to God through Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit indwells us.
Recently I have been re-reading a book written well over 100 years ago, With Christ in the School of Prayer by Andrew Murray. Many of you may not be familiar with him, but this book – available on Kindle and often found in used bookstores – is a treasure house of encouragement in learning to pray.
In a recent reading I was struck by this comment:
The will rules the whole heart and life; if I really will to have anything that is within my reach, I do not rest till I have it. And so, when Jesus asks the blind man “What do you want Me to do for you?” “Rabbouni,” the blind man told Him, “I want to see!”” (Mark 10:51, HCSB)
He asks whether it is indeed our purpose to have what we ask at any price, however great the sacrifice.
Andrew Murray. With Christ in the School of Prayer (pp. 62-63). Sanage Publishing. Kindle Edition.
There are no simple steps, no three key actions, or no easy route by which to allow God to transform our will. God wants to answer us more desperately than we often want to ask!
So, ask and receive, knock and let God open the door, and seek and God will lead you to a fuller and more robust relationship with Him, who is able to do more than we ask or think!
Till next time….