The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives

by Dallas Willard

few voices have continued to emphasize that the cause of the distressed human condition, individual and social—and its only possible cure—is a spiritual one. But what these voices are saying is not clear.

social and political revolutions have shown no tendency to transform the heart of darkness that lies deep in the breast of every human being.

amid a flood of techniques for self-fulfillment there is an epidemic of depression, suicide, personal emptiness, and escapism through drugs and alcohol, cultic obsession, consumerism, and sex and violence—all combined with an i...

Christians are among those caught up in the sorrowful epidemic just referred to.

modern thinking has come to view the Christian faith as powerless, even somehow archaic, at the very least irrelevant.

First, it must take the need for human transformation as seriously as do modern revolutionary movements.

church was not faithful to its own message—it failed to take human transformation seriously as a real, practical issue to be dealt with in realistic terms.

Second, it needs to clarify and exemplify realistic methods of human transformation. It must show how the ordinary individuals who make up the human race today can become, through the grace of Christ, a love-filled, effective, and powerful community.

We can become like Christ in character and in power and thus realize our highest ideals of well-being and well-doing. That is the heart of the New Testament message.

we can become like Christ by doing one thing—by following him in the overall style of life he chose for himself.

remain constantly at home in the fellowship of his Father.

The practices are powerful but the means are more powerful! “That same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead”

solitude and silence, prayer, simple and sacrificial living, intense study and meditation upon God’s Word and God’s ways, and service to others. Some of these will certainly be even more necessary to us than they were to him, because of our greater or different need.

Such a faith as just described is strongly opposed today by powerful tendencies around us.

Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that the essence of faith is entirely a mental and inward thing.

history has only made things worse. It has built a wall between faith and grace, and what we actually do.

So, worst of all, we’re unable to use that connection as the basis for specific guidance as to how to enter into Christ’s character and power.

However, neither individually nor collectively do any of these ways reliably produce large numbers of people who really are like Christ and his closest followers throughout history. That is statistically verifiable fact.

There is a deep longing among Christians and non-Christians alike for the personal purity and power to live as our hearts tell us we should.

What we need is a deeper insight into our practical relationship with God in redemption. We need an understanding that can guide us into constant interaction with the Kingdom of God as a real part of our daily lives, an ongoing spiritual presence that is at the same time a psychological reality. In other words, we must develop a psychologically sound theology of the spiritual life and of its disciplines to guide us.

the nature of spiritual life itself, to show how it is the fulfillment of the human body and how our body is a primary resource for the spiritual life.

why the disciplines became for all practical purposes lost to us in Western Christianity.

how a widespread transformation of character through wisely disciplined discipleship to Christ can transform our world—how it can disarm the structural evils that have always dominated humankind and now threaten to destroy the earth.

my ultimate aim is to change our practice radically.

When we call men and women to life in Christ Jesus, we are offering them the greatest opportunity of their lives—the opportunity of a vivid companionship with him, in which they will learn to be like him and live as he lived.

As our meeting place, the disciplines are part of the good news of new life. We should practice them and then invite others to join us there.

I want to inspire Christianity today to remove the disciplines from the category of historical curiosities and place them at the center of the new life in Christ.

Our local assemblies must become academies of life as it was meant to be.

equipped in character and power to judge or guide the earth.

this is an age for spiritual heroes—a time for men and women to be heroic in faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.

all of us can make our daily lives and vocations be “the house of God and the gate of heaven.” It can—and must—happen. And it will happen. The living Christ will make it happen through us as we dwell with him in life appropriately disciplined in the spiritual Kingdom of God.

The Spirit of the Disciplines is nothing but the love of Jesus, with its resolute will to be like him whom we love.

no labour is better expended than that which explores the way to the treasure-houses of the spirit,

“Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried.”

The vast, grim “cost of discipleship” is something we hear constantly emphasized. Chesterton’s observation can at least be taken as reflecting the attitude of many serious people toward The Way of Christ.

To depart from righteousness is to choose a life of crushing burdens, failures, and disappointments, a life caught in the toils of endless problems that are never resolved.

street-level human existence.

His teachings are treated as a mere ideal,

beside, we’re in a period of grace—we are saved by grace, not by anything we do—so obedience to Christ is actually not necessary. And it is so hard, anyway; it cannot be expected of us, much less enjoyed by us.

Jesus calls us to follow him—to follow him now, not after death.

No one denies that we would be far better off and our world an immeasurably better place, if we were to conform in deed and spirit to who he is and what he taught.

We have only to grasp the secret of entering into that easy yoke.

Will they succeed in performing like the star, though? We all know the answer quite well. We know that they won’t succeed if all they do is try to be like him in the game—no matter how gifted they may be in their own way. And we all understand why.

The star performer himself didn’t achieve his excellence by trying to behave in a certain way only during the game. Instead, he chose an overall life of preparation of mind and body, pouring all his energies into that total preparation, to provide a foundation in the body’s automatic responses and strength for his conscious efforts during the game.

a daily regimen no one sees.

For example, the proper diet and rest and the exercises for specific muscles are not a part of the game itself, but without them the athlete certainly would not perform outstandingly.

the successful athlete knows that his disciplines must be undertaken, and undertaken rightly, or all his natural talents and best efforts will go down in defeat to others who have di...

A successful performance at a moment of crisis rests

largely and essentially upon the depths of a self wisely and rigorously prepared in the totality of its being—mind and body.

there is an art of living, and the living is excellent only when the self is prepared in all the depths and dimensions of its being.

A baseball player who expects to excel in the game without adequate exercise of his body is no more ridiculous than the Christian who hopes to be able to act in the manner of Christ when put to the test without the appropriate exercise in godly living.