Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice: Experiments in Spiritual Transformation

by Jan Johnson, Dallas Willard

Overview

Are you longing for life-changing transformation in your relationship with God?
Get ready to find fresh illumination for your faith journey in this short and practical guide. Exploring over 60 carefully chosen selections from renowned author Dallas Willard’s bestseller Renovation of the Heart, this book offers powerful brief lessons for character formation.

With devotional-sized quotes and rigorous daily experiments, this book will challenge and encourage you to dive deeper than ever before in your relationship with the Creator. Perfect for group or individual study, this guide is for anyone and everyone, no matter the stage of your Christian walk.

Working through Dallas Willard’s plan for spiritual renovation of the whole person, this book covers a wide range of topics, such as:

• What “death to self” looks like
• The crucial role of good thinking
• The interplay of will, thoughts, and feelings
• Being a person of joy and peace
• The body’s role in spiritual formation

Be inspired and strengthened as you enjoy the adventure of these experiments in spiritual transformation and grow an unshakeable faith.

“No one has impacted my life like Dallas Willard. But for most of us, it helps to break his thoughts into bite-sized portions and then actually do something with them. So, this is a feast!” —John Ortberg, author and speaker

“I see no way to work through this book without being radically changed from the inside out.” —Howard Baker, instructor of Christian formation, chaplain, author of Soul Keeping

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781576838099
Publisher:	Tyndale House Publishers
Publication date:	03/07/2023
Series:	Redefining Life Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	163,957
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Dr. Dallas Willard, professor and former director of the School of Philosophy at the University of Southern California, is the author of more than thirty works, including The Divine Conspiracy and The Spirit of the Disciplines. Jan Johnson has created several devotionals, including Hearing God Through the Year.

Read an Excerpt

RENOVATION OF THE HEART IN DAILY PRACTICE

EXPERIMENTS IN SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION

---

By DALLAS WILLARD JAN JOHNSON

NAVPRESS

Copyright © 2006 Jan Johnson
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-57683-809-9

---

Chapter One

Kingdom Possibilities

When we open ourselves to New Testament writings and absorb our minds and hearts in one of the Gospels or in letters such as Ephesians or 1 Peter, we get the impression we are looking into another world and another life. It is a divine world and a divine life. Leaping out from the pages are amazing promises to those who give their life to this new world through their confidence in Jesus. For example, Jesus said that those who give themselves to him will receive "living water," the Spirit of God himself. He will keep them from ever again being thirsty-being driven and ruled by unsatisfied desires (see John 4:14). Indeed, they will receive "rivers of living water" flowing from the center of their life to a thirsty world (John 7:38, NRSV)

Paul prayed that believers will "know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that they may be filled with all the fullness of God ... by the power at work within us, that is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:19-20, PAR) Peter said that those who love and trust Jesus will "rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy" (1 Peter 1:8, NRSV), with "genuine mutual love" pouring from their hearts (1:22, NRSV), ridding themselves of "all malice, and all guile,insincerity, envy, and all slander" (2:1, NRSV). As if that weren't enough, these believers would silences coffers of the Way of Christ by simply doing what is right (see 2:15) and casting all their anxieties upon God because he cares for us (see 5:7).

Ordinary people have entered this kingdom of God and are entering this divine world and divine life even now. It is a world that seems open to us and beckons us to enter. We feel its call.

* * *

We often say, "Nobody's perfect." We don't say this just when someone fails but also when we run up against the Bible's description of the kingdom personality of "genuine mutual love" that is free of "all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander." Perhaps we rush to say it because we feel inadequate compared to such love. But what if we don't make that description about us-focusing on our shortcomings-but instead linger on the beauty of God and God's kingdom?

Is it possible we rush to say, "Nobody's perfect" because we've met so few people who show genuine love and move through life without superiority, insensitivity, or gossip? Maybe we have met a few but didn't notice the beauty of their Christlikeness. Instead, we were impressed by other things-their ability to quote Bible verses or answer questions about world religions. Those who speak articulately about the Bible may draw our attention more than those who live a transformed life.

Try picturing this hypothetical moment of dwelling on the beauty of God and the kingdom life: Let's say I confessed to you my disgust with someone who annoyed me and how hopeless I felt about ever loving this person. What if instead of trying to make me feel better by saying, "Nobody's perfect," you said you believed in God's power to transform me into a radical person who pays loving attention to those who annoy me? What if you prayed for me about this? What if later that day you encountered an annoying person and, without thinking, treated that person with kindness and attentiveness-partly because of the transforming effect of our conversation about the kingdom personality?

Today's Experiment

Read slowly these phrases describing the kingdom life and personality:

to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge to be filled with all the fullness of God power at work within us able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy genuine mutual love pouring from their hearts without malice, guile, insincerity, envy, and slander

Thank God for the beauty of the kingdom life and for the possibility of the transformation of your soul. Spend a minute or two longing for the kingdom of God in your life: "Thy kingdom come! Thy will be done!"

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from RENOVATION OF THE HEART IN DAILY PRACTICE by DALLAS WILLARD JAN JOHNSON Copyright © 2006 by Jan Johnson. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

1 Kingdom Possibilities 9

2 No Unsolvable Puzzle 12

3 Change Me on the Inside 15

4 Trying to Be Good 18

5 Who We Are, Not How We Act 21

6 The Heart of Me 24

7 Interplay of Will, Thoughts, and Feelings 27

8 The Loudest Voice Within Me 30

9 Possessing the Land 32

10 Ruined Souls 34

11 God Being God 37

12 The Soul's Lostness 40

13 Wanting That Different Kind of Life 43

14 Foundation for Spiritual Formation 46

15 What "Death to Self" Looks Like 49

16 Standing for the Right Without Egotism 52

17 What Is Our Plan? 55

18 VIM: Vision of Life in the Kingdom 57

19 VIM: Intention 60

20 VIM: Means 63

21 Our First Freedom 66

22 Ideas: From Dark to Light 68

23 Images: Ideas Pictured 71

24 Information and the Ability to Think 74

25 Crucial Role of Good Thinking 77

26 God's Thoughts in You 80

27 Mastered by Feelings 83

28 Hidden Dynamics of Feelings 86

29 The Power of the "Mood" 88

30 Feelings of the Spiritually Transformed Person 90

31 A Person of Joy and Peace 93

32 Next Steps Toward Love, Joy, and Peace 96

33 Changing the Character 99

34 The Splintered Will 102

35 The Vivid and Eternal Drama of God 104

36 How Disciplines Help 107

37 The Body's Role in Spiritual Formation 110

38 Retraining the Body 113

39 Releasing the Body to God 116

40 Misuses of the Body 118

41 Sabbath Moments 120

42 Formation Is Not Private 122

43 Reciprocal Rootedness in Others 124

44 How Lovelessness Works 127

45 Letting Go of Attack and Withdrawal 130

46 Steps Toward Genuine Love 133

47 Integrating the Dimensions of the Self 136

48 The Depths of Our Being 139

49 The Cries of the Soul 142

50 Abandoning Outcomes 145

51 The Sweetness of the Law 148

52 Children of Light 151

53 What Children of Light Are Like 153

54 Progression of Spiritual Growth 156

55 To Be Children of Light Now 159

56 The Distracted Church 162

57 The Costs of Nondiscipleship 164

58 God's Plan for Spiritual Formation 167

59 Stage One: Making Apprentices 170

60 Arranging for Transformation 173

61 Moving Forward 176

Retreating 179

Notes 183

About the Authors 185