Slides for chapter 7 from class and discussion about Dallas Willard's Renovation of the Heart.

1. Renovation of the heart:
Putting on the character of Christ
Chapter 7
Transforming the mind – Part 2
Spiritual formation and our feelings

2. The Power of Feeling
 Feelings are a primary blessing, and feelings are a
problem.
 Willard refers to feelings as a “blind power.”
 City of Angels…
 When you only lightly reflect on what is involved, the
blindness and power associated with feelings become
obvious. The character desired one breath, one kiss,
for what?

3. No head-on mastery of feeling
 No one can succeed in mastering feelings in his or her life by taking
them “head-on” and trying to resist or redirect them by “willpower.”
 Those who continue to be mastered by their feelings…are typically
persons who in their hearts believe that their feelings must be
satisfied. They have long chosen the strategy of selectively resisting
their feelings instead of not having them – of simply changing or
replacing them.
 The transforming person accepts the fact that their feelings, whatever
they may be, do not have to be fulfilled.
 The aim is not to avoid sin, but to avoid temptation, the
inclination to sin.

4. My identity beyond my feelings
 Early focus, trying to resist sin or trying not to sin
 At an early stage of spiritual formation, a major step forward is not just
desiring to not sin, but to desire to have different feelings.
 Sermon on the mount: Do not murder > Do not harbor anger in your heart
 If a strong and compelling vision of myself as one who is simply free
from intense vanity or desire for wealth or for sexual indulgence can
possess me, then I am in a position to desire to not have the desires I
now have. And then means can be effectively sought to that end.

5. The vision of oneself as really different
 The new vision of oneself will not happen at the snap of
your fingers.
 It will require openness to radical change in oneself,
careful and creative instruction, and abundant supplies of
divine grace.
 The challenge we face with transformation is we have no
real idea of who we will be. We start with the simple
identity, “apprentice of Jesus.”

6. Feelings move our lives – well or badly
 Feelings move us, and we enjoy being moved.
 One reason many people become dependent on “substances” and
activities is to experience feelings.
 Given the choice of no feelings, or accepting harmful feelings, humans
will accept (pursue) the harmful feeling.
 If we are to be formed in Christlikeness, we must take good care of
our feelings not just let them happen.
 Example…the Good Samaritan

7. Destructive feelings
 Many of the feelings that animate us are destructive of others and ourselves.
 James 4:1-2; James 3:16
 The focus should be on removing the cause (the feelings) and not just the
effect.
 Feelings are central to our existence; the challenge is to make sure we are
led by good feelings.
 Feelings are with a few exceptions, good servants. But they are disastrous
masters.

8. Denial and repression of feelings are
not the answer
 …let it be very clear that we are not in favor of denying
feelings or repressing them…The proper course of action
is to replace destructive feelings with others that are
good, or to subordinate them (anger and sexual desire
for example) in a way that makes them constructive and
transforms their effects.
 Spiritual transformation will do this by grace.

9. Feelings and their underlying condition
 It is important not to confuse condition with feeling.
 Act with regard to condition and allow feelings to take
care of themselves.
 Example
 There is a difference between turning loose a loved
one who has died, and turning loose one’s grief.
 Keep a loved one in your heart, but work through (and
let go of) the grief.

10. Feelings spread
 Feelings do more than just move or touch us; they influence how we think
about and act towards others.
 It may be hard to reason with someone because of the influence of feelings.
 Example
 A person imprisoned by feelings of injustice and outrage
 Social group overtaken by feelings and sensations (Nazi genocide of Jewish people)
 Feelings can be reasoned with or corrected, only when an individual will
listen to reason.
 Those who are wise will, accordingly, never allow themselves, if they can
help it, to get in a position where they feel too deeply about any human
matter. They will never willingly choose to allow feeling to govern them.
They will carefully keep the pathway open to the house of reason and go
there regularly to listen.

11. The Secret of Addiction
 Abandonment to feeling, allowing oneself to be “carried
away” by feeling, is actually sought by many, and on a
regular basis.
 Epidemic deadness of soul
 For the “dead soul,” feeling is sought for its own sake,
and satisfaction in feeling alone demands stronger feeling.
 Explanation for addiction
 Addiction is a feeling phenomenon
 Disclaimer….

12. Modernity and deciding by how we feel
 Modernity…a condition lacking ritual and personal relations
 We have lost our sense of community
 Here lies the secret to understanding contemporary Western
life and its peculiar proneness to gross immoralities and
addictions. People are overwhelmed with decisions and can
only make those decisions on the basis of feelings.
 Experiences of Leo Tolstoy…
 More recently…the world of pointless activity is portrayed in
such staples of contemporary American consciousness as
television’s Cheers, Seinfeld, Friends, and Will and Grace.

13. Modernity and deciding by how we feel
 Experiences of Leo Tolstoy…
 Wealthy upper-class Russians compared to peasants of the day
 They had solid traditions of faith and community that provided a
ritual form of life-and of death. The result was that they knew
what was good to do without regarding to their feelings.
 More recently…homemakers and wage earners
 Order in life provides strength and inner freedom based on a sense
of place and direction
 Self-control is the steady capacity to direct yourself to accomplish
what you have chosen or decided to do and be, even though you
“don’t feel like it.” Self-control means that you…do what you don’t
want to do…when that is needed and do not do what you want to
do…when that is needed…

14. The Godly Feelings in the Spiritually
Transformed Person
 The realm of feelings seems to be an area of total
chaos...
 When we properly cultivate with divine assistance those
few feelings that should be prominent in our lives, the
remainder will fall into place.
 What are the few feelings?
 The feelings associated with: love, joy, and peace.
 Faith and hope are also important, though subordinate to
love, joy, and peace.

15. Hope and Faith
 One of the remarkable changes brought about by Jesus and His
people into the ancient world concerned the elevation of hope
into a primary virtue.
 Faith is confidence grounded in reality, not a wild, desperate
“leap.” It is as Hebrews 1:1 says, substance and evidence or
proof, not subjective psychological states such as “being sure
of” or “having a conviction of.”
 Faith sees the reality of the unseen or invisible, and it includes
a readiness to act as if the good anticipated in hope were
already in hand because of the reality of God.

16. Faith and Hop Lay the Foundation for a
Life Full of Love
 Romans 5:1-5
 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have
peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom
we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now
stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only
so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that
suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character;
and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through
the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

17. Love
 What is love?
 It is will to good or “bene-volence”
 What characterizes the deepest essence of God is love – that
will to good.
 It is not hard for God to love, but it is impossible, given His
nature, for Him not to love.
 Our human world as we find it is not like God, though it was
intended to be. Love is not natural in our world, though desire
or lust is (c.f., 1 John 2:16).

18. The Four Movements Toward Perfect Love
 No other source, inside or outside of religions, even comes close to what
God in Christ shows of love.
 This is the first “move” of love in the process of redemption (1 John
4:19).
 Love is awakened in us by Him. This is the second movement in the
return to love, “We love because He first loved us.”
 The second movement is inseparable from the third movement: our love
of others who love God (1 John 4:12).
 The fellowship of Christ’s apprentices in kingdom living is a community of
love. This is the fourth movement in the process of redeeming love.
 The movements of love in our lives:
 We are loved by God who is love, and in turn we love him, and others
through Him, who in turn love us through Him.

19. Joy
 In the presence of God’s love we find joy.
 Joy is a pervasive sense – not just a thought – of overall and ultimate well-
being.
 Joy is a basic element of inner transformation into Christlikeness and of the
outer life that flows from it.
 The joy of Christ that fills us is received as a gift of divine impartation.
 Caution: We may allow joy to dissipate through looking backward at our sins
and failures, or forward at what might happen to us, or inward at struggles.
 We should instead look to the greatness and goodness of God and what He will
do in our lives.
 We will be empowered by the Spirit of God to do this if we choose it and fix
our minds on the good that God is and will certainly bring to pass.

20. Peace
 Peace is the rest of will that results from assurance about “how
things will turn out.” It is always a form of active engagement with
good, plus assurance that things will turn out well.
 Everyone is at peace with some things (ideally), but not all may have
peace in general.
 To be at peace with God and others is a great attainment and
depends on graces far beyond ourselves as well as on our own efforts.
 Even in instances where there may be a struggle between me and
others, there does not have to be a struggle within me. I can be at
peace within myself and toward others.

21. Rest on the Greatness of God
 The secret to this peace is being abandoned to God.
 The person who is heartily abandoned to God knows that
all shall be well because God is in charge of his or her life.
My peace is the greatness of God.
 We should accept Paul’s instruction in Philippians 4:6-7…
 The greatness and love of God forms my peace, and at the
same time, my love and joy.

22. Love, Joy, and Peace Cannot be
Separated
 Of course it is impossible to separate love, joy, peace, faith
(confidence), and hope from one another in practice.
 It is the positive movement into love, joy and peace, based on faith
and hope in God that eliminates the destructive feelings or at least
eliminates them as governing factors in our life.
 Love, joy, and peace fostered in divine fellowship simply crowd out
fear, anger, unsatisfied desire, woundedness, rejection.
 Belonging to Christ does not immediately eliminate bad feelings.
But it does crucify them.

23. Some things we can do
 …the renovation of the heart in the dimension of feeling is a matter of
opening ourselves to and carefully cultivating love, joy, and peace: first by
receiving them from God and from those already living in him, and then as
we grow, extending love, joy and peace to others and everything around us in
attitude, prayer, and action.
 For many of us, just coming to honest terms with what our feelings really are
will be a huge task.
 The task, once we have given ourselves to Christ, is to recognize the reality
of our feelings and agree with the Lord to abandon those that are destructive
and that lead us into doing or being what we know to be wrong.
 How to accomplish:
 A letter to the Lord
 Talk with Christian friends
 Share concerns with those who will pray for you
 Keep a journal regarding your feelings

24. The extreme seriousness of feelings
for spiritual formation
 Feelings are extremely influential on all that we are and do, more so
than they should be.
 Feelings more than most aspects of our nature, are the “trigger” of
sinful action.
 We err when we try to manipulate feelings without regard to their
underlying condition.
 Feelings are not fundamental in the nature of things, but become so if
we assign them that role in life.
 We must understand how love, joy, and peace can be our portion in
every state of life and can lead us into a radiant eternity with God.

25. Matters for thought and discussion
1. Think of the great and direct power of feeling over human life. How do you see
this at work in daily life? For good? For evil? In yourself? In others?
2. What has been your experience with controlling feeling directly or “head on?”
4. When you need to resist a feeling, upon what do you stand to do so?
6. What is your experience with feelings spreading? Over different parts of your life
and activity? Over groups?
7. What are some problems you see with basing decision on feelings? Can we decide
without feelings?
8. How can feelings be “godly”? Which ones are? Which ones are not?
12. How would you distinguish peace and joy? Can you really have one of them
without the other one? Under what conditions?
13. How can one cultivate peace, or joy, or love, or hope? What are some specific
ways you have found to be helpful? How does faith fit in?