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February 27 - March 11, 2022
The disciplines themselves were not transformative, but they placed the soul in a position to be transformed by God.
People doing spiritual exercises with God often struggled in their relationships with others. People working on relationships with others often had difficulty sensing God. Neither group did overly well at loving their enemies.
Going one step further, perhaps spiritual and emotional maturity were one thing, not two different issues.
The only kind of love that helps the brain learn better character is attachment love. The brain functions that determine our character are most profoundly shaped by who we love. Changing character, as far as the brain is concerned, means attaching in new and better ways.
A focus on attachment would have profound implications for our understanding of human character, fellowship, and spiritual formation.
Christians had not provided strong enough attachments for me to expose what went on in my brain.
Now, at the conference, we were asking Dallas to address why people sometimes remained emotionally immature after their trauma was healed and even after they practiced spiritual disciplines.
But if we understand that the Bible is a record of reliable experience with God, then it is a major player in the field of how to live.
Peter’s response to Jesus is the most important question for us to ask continually: “To whom should we go?”
dimensions of human life, from which the notions of maturity and immaturity arise: the will (very important); the mind, which includes thoughts and feelings; the body, which is our little power pack that God has given to us to allow us to have a decent kind of life; our social connections (which are essential); and then finally, the soul.
we ought to understand that the Spirit of God is involved in all the instrumentalities of the Kingdom. But we’re not waiting on the Spirit of God; the Spirit of God is already there.
“As I follow Christ” is the saving clause. In honesty and humility—because I don’t have anything to hide—I’m happy if people will find out where I’m wrong and then help me get it right.
yet the assurance “the Lord is near.” The Lord’s nearness is the source of our gentleness.
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” It doesn’t mean it’s about to come—it’s there. So the path to spiritual and emotional maturity is rooted in the practice of the presence of Jesus.
anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.[11] That’s what the spiritually
It’s turning to what is good that fills out the life of the emotionally and spiritually mature person.
As you step into spiritual maturity, you step into the wonderful world of God so rich with good things that we won’t have enough time to concentrate on them.
But healthy people—people who are spiritually and emotionally mature, people who are following Jesus—don’t live there.
We don’t try to do those things—we become the kind of person who does those things. If you try to do those things, it will just kill you. But if you receive love as the principle of your life in all dimensions of your being, then you will see love: Love is kind, love does not envy, and so on all the way down the line. And having received love, you will be transformed into a person who loves.
One of the things that characterizes desires is that they don’t pay attention to each other. Desires are essentially conflictual.
Desire does not address the issue of what is good. It simply says, “I want that.” And it neglects everything else.
The will is meant to be the arbitrator of desires. That’s why when we speak of the will, we often think of deliberation.
Sometimes we have to give in so that Johnny will learn that he didn’t want something after all. That’s us training a child’s will: We help them learn how to deliberate.
The whole point of ethics as it has developed in the human scene from the beginning is to give you a reason for not doing what you want to do and for doing what you don’t want to do.
And because they don’t live in the Kingdom of God, they have no alternative to a life dominated by emotions, desires, and feelings.
It’s this fruit that’s the mark of the person who is emotionally and spiritually mature.
Emotional maturity refers primarily to having our feelings, desires, and emotions under the guidance and control of what is good.
Living for what is good is what characterizes the emotionally mature person.
Sometimes this is called self-control, by which we mean that the self has a broad view: not just what is wanted, but what is good. To be emotionally mature is to be in a position to control what is wanted in terms of what is good.
The emotionally mature person, on the other hand, is able to direct their “wants,” to speak simply, in terms of what is good.
spiritually mature person is someone who has chosen the Kingdom of God—God’s reign over them—as their guide to what is good.
They have developed the knowledge and habits that keep them constantly turned toward and expectant of God and God’s action in their life. This is the primary source of direction and empowerment for all that concerns them and their world.
“Why would anyone want to do that? Let’s bless instead of curse.”
God is near and God is good—that’s our starting point.
The only thing that allows you to live without fear is to live in the Kingdom of God.
Basically, the Kingdom of God is God in action, and He’s in action many ways.
The Kingdom of God invites us to live in it and call it home. What does that mean? To live in the range of His effective will.
Being caught up in the life that God is now living on earth is a good way of thinking of salvation.
So if you’re going to be a spiritually mature person, you have to think of yourself in a different way.
am an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe.” Say that yourself: That’s the understanding of yourself that will make spiritual maturity possible. You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe.
If you in your mind don’t have an adequate conception of the Kingdom and of yourself, it will be impossible to lead a life of integrity around the character of Jesus Christ.
But you cannot rest in the purposes of God for your life unless you understand who you are. How you think about who you are enables you to deal with life in a way that is emotionally and spiritually mature.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.” Now, actually I think there’s going to be a
It’s by recognizing that you have a place in the Kingdom of God that you are allowed to say, “I don’t need to be a part of that.”
the old trilogy of the world, the flesh, and the devil is a real, hard-bitten reality.
Stepping into alignment with Jesus begins the renewal of your mind. Then you can recognize another way of living.
(or, by contrast, making much of a child’s good looks or great intelligence to the point that it becomes for them a solely defining characteristic) can shape how they see themselves and then how they act, and sometimes it follows them through their whole life.
the constant contact with God frees me up from the chaos and destructiveness of the works of the flesh.
A rich emotional life is a life caught up in truth and beauty and goodness in the concrete details.
The emotionally mature person is one in whom all of the tensions of desire and feeling and emotion are resolved in the sense of goodness that guides their life.
