Willard | Renovation of Heart

Influence on Action But now we turn to action. Our actions always arise out of the interplay of the universal factors in human life: spirit, mind, body, social context, and soul. Action never comes from the movement of the will alone. Often? perhaps usually?what we do is not an outcome of deliberate choice and a mere act of will, but is more of a r

But for all of the soul?s vastness and independence, the tiny executive

center of the person?that is, the spirit or will?can redirect and re-form the soul, with God's cooperation. It mainly does this by redirecting the body in spiritual disciplines and toward various other types of experiences under God.

But this eternal kind of life is not a passive life. Passivity was for the

Israelites, and it is for us, one of the greatest dangers and difficulties of our spiritual existence. The land promised to them was one of incredible goodness??flowing with milk and honey,? as it is repeatedly described (see Exodus 3:8, for example). But it still had to be c

We need to access the fullness of biblical teachings on these matters. We suffer far too much from the influence ofa surrounding culture that thrives on confusion. (And therefore its denial that human beings have a nature.) This may seem like a harsh thing to say about our ?Christian world,? and I am sorry to say it; but the issues here are too imp

But resolute action for the good requires that things make sense.

You wouldn?t want someone caught up in helter-skelter to work on your lawn mower or computer. Life makes sense only if you understand its basic components and how they interrelate to form the whole. Evil, on the other hand, thrives on confusion. God is not the author of confusion (1 C

In the life under God, by contrast, the order of dominance is

God Spirit

Mind (Thought/Feeling) Soul Body

Here the body serves the soul; the soul, the mind; the mind, the spirit; and the spirit, God. Conversely, the life ?from above? flows from God throughout the whole person, including the body and its social context.

Will (Spirit, Heart) Volition, or choice, is the exercise of will, the capacity of the person to originate things and events that would not otherwise be or occur. By ?originate? here we mean to include two of the things most prized in human life: ... freedom and creativity. These are really two aspects of the same thing when properly understood, wh

This is one of the things we are most inclined to deceive ourselves about. IfI do evil, I am the kind of person who does evil; if I do good, I am the kind of person who does good (1 John 3:7-10). Actions are not impositions on who we are but are expressions of who we are. They come out of the heart and the inner realities it supervises and interact

It is the central point of this book that spiritual transformation only happens as each essential dimension of the human being is transformed to Christlikeness under the direction of a regenerate will interacting with constant overtures of grace from God. Such transformation is not the result of mere human effort and cannot be accomplished by putti