We are told repeatedly by Paul to put off the old person and to put on the new. How does one do that?
The answer is actually rather simple. One must intend to do it, and then one must sensibly implement the means. Putting on the new person, growing in grace, is something we must do. Appropriate action is the key. True, as Jesus said, "Without me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) But it is also true that if we do nothing it will be without him.
The path of spiritual growth in the riches of Christ is not a passive one. Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Effort is action. Earning is attitude. You have never seen people more active than those who have been set on fire by the grace of God.
Paul, who perhaps understood grace better than any other mere human being, looked back at what had happened to him and said: "By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me." (I Cor. 15:10)
Grace cultivates the will and helps to develop it in godliness. It does this by working with all the dimensions of the self. But one has to be open to that, and above all, one has to be turned toward God and acknowledge [his or her] dependence on Him.
The disciplines of the spiritual life are simply practices that prove to be effectual in enabling us to increase the grace of God in our lives.
A discipline in any area is something in my power that I do to enable me to do what I cannot do by direct effort. This is the general nature of discipline, and there is simply no area of human attainment--from playing a musical instrument, to sports, to speaking a language or being friendly--that does not require discipline.
Disciplines are not law, they are wisdom. We have to learn how to do them, and we always fail at the outset. But to fail here is not to sin. Disciplines are for followers of Jesus who intend to learn from Jesus how to live their whole lives in the
A Few Important Efforts of Following Jesus
Solitude and, within it, silence to expose ourselves to ourselves and to provide a natural context in which to listen to God. This allows my inner compass to stop whirling in response to the demands of others. The elasticity and wholeness of my soul is restored as I grow "still and know that God is God." (Ps. 46:10)
Fasting and, within it, meditating upon God's Word. Fasting is "prime self-denial," a way to expose "how much of our peace depends upon the pleasures of eating." Superficial peace, too. Meditating secures in our lived experience the conviction that "we have meat to eat that the world does not know."
Chastity to train the eyes and the imagination—the eyes of the heart—to see God's sons and daughters as our brothers and sisters.
Secrecy about doing good and being good in order to mortify pride, walk in humility, and relieve ourselves of the need to be the center of attention or to tout our spiritual resume in public.
Study of God's Word in order, as Calvin put it, "to dig up the treasures buried there" and live off them. God has put the Bible in our hands as a kind of owners' manual for tuning and running a healthy life in the kingdom. It's always wise to read the manual.
Worship and, within it, celebration—feasting, dancing, singing at God's glad invitation—in order to mortify despair and to draw us into joyful repose in the household of God. Because we all become like the one we worship, blessed are those whose God is the Lord!
Deliberate consciousness that the first heaven is the air around us, that God is alive in it, and that, bidden or unbidden, God is awfully present there. All prayer, including short prayer ("Help, Lord!"), is inescapably and gloriously local.
Confession of our sins to each other as well as to God. This mortification of the old self is, of course, open to terrible abuse. Who but God can bear to know not only what I said, but also what I almost said? Still, if you confess to a friend that you lied to him, your confession will "marvelously enhance" your ability to get it straight the next time.
The Results Over Time
Fasting becomes feasting on God, meditation on scripture becomes celebration. Religion is no longer an additional burden to be carried in an already overburdened life, but is replaced by a joyous confidence that God is present and prevailing in every situation of life and death.
* The following was a gathered from several articles by Dallas Willard
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