I am reading a book by Dallas Willard called The Spirit of the Disciplines.  I’m only in the third chapter, but I have really liked it so far.   So in an effort to make up for my last post about nothing that important, I will share a few gems from the book related to that which is INFINITELY more important, namely knowing God and being conformed to His image.  

“So we do not have the strength we should have, and Jesus’ commandments become overwhelmingly burdensome to us. In fact, many Christians cannot even believe He actually intended for us to carry them out. So what is the result?

His teachings are treated as a mere ideal, one that we may better ourselves by aiming for but know we are bound to fall glaringly short of.   It’s a familiar story.  “We’re only human,” we say, and “to err is human.”  Such pronouncements may be for another age or “dispensation,” we may think – or possibly they’re for when we are in heaven.  But they cannot be for us now.  Not really.  Jesus could not have imposed anything that hard upon us. 

And besides, 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. 

And so we reason.  All of our reasonings, however, remove the thought that Jesus calls us to follow Him – to follow Him now, not after death.”   (pg 2-3 SotD, Willard)

GK Chesterton said something similar:  “Christianity has not so much been tried and found wanting, as it has been found difficult and left untried.” 

Wow, huh?  Honestly, I think part of the reason I am posting this is so that I do not have to sit here alone in the conviction of it all… ouch.

I love this quote by Willard too (followed by the powerful T.S. Eliot poem):

“The Spirit of the Disciplines is nothing but the love of Jesus with its resolute will to be like Him whom we love.  In the fellowship of the burning heart, “exercise unto godliness” is our way of receiving ever more fully the grace in which we stand, rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God (Rom 5:2).”   (xii, SotD, Willard)

The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
     Lies in the choice of pyre of pyre-
     To be redeemed from fire by fire.

Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
     We only live, only suspire
     Consumed by either fire or fire.

                                                                      (TS Eliot, Little Gidding IV)

May we be consumed only by the Flame Himself, Love that cannot be quenched and will not be ignored.