Training vs Trying

Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Chapter 3 from The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg.

Trying hard can accomplish only so much. If you are serious about something, you will have to enter a training for it and would need to do it continually. You must arrange your life around certain practices that will enable you to do what you cannot do now by willpower alone.


Spiritual disciple is not about trying to be good enough to earn credit with God. They exist for our sake, not God's.

Discipline: Any activity I can do by direct effort that will help me do what I cannot now do by direct effort.

Disciplined people can do the right thing at the right time in the right way for the right reason.

People do not drift into a life of training, they decide to. It does not come by accident; it is done purposely and deliberately.

If my problem is that I am doing something I ought not to do, I need to practice a disciple that strengthens my not-doing muscles.

Surprised by Change

If you are weary of some sleepy form of devotion, probably God is as weary of it as you are. 
- Frank Laubach

"Spirituality" wrongly understood or pursued is a major source of human misery and rebellion against God. 
- Dallas Willard

Summary of chapter 2 Surprised by Change from The Life You've Always Wanted by John Ortberg

Jesus brought a message that spoke to the deepest longings of the human heart to become not simply conformed to a religious subculture but transformed into "new creatures."  Instead of focusing on the boundaries, Jesus focused on the center, the heart of spiritual life. When asked to identify what the law is about. Jesus' response was simply "Love God, love people."

Tragically, it is possible to think we are becoming more spiritual when in fact we are only becoming more smug and judgmental. Pseudo-transformation means become what Mark Twain once called "a good man in the worse sense of the word."

Why do I constantly find myself rating people as if they were Olympic contestants and someone appointed me judge? Why do I so often compare myself with them as if we were in some kind of competition? The real issue is what kind of people are we becoming? 

It's Morphing Time

Now, with God's help, I shall become myself. - Soren Kierkegaard.

I could not quiet that pearly ache in my heart that I diagnosed as the cry of home. - Pat Conroy

Summary of The Life You've Always Wanted
chapter 1  "We Shall Morph Indeed" The Hope of Transformation
By John Orthberg

Dis-appointing God

I am disappointed with myself...I have a nagging sense that all is not as it should be. I am in a state of dis-appointment. I am missing the life that I was appointed by God to live. I have removed Him from the central role he longs to play in my life; I have refused to let God be God and have appointed myself in His place. We are called by God to live our uniquely created selves- our temperament, our gene pool  and our history. God is not interested in your spiritual life.' God is just interested in your life. He intends to redeem it


Inextinguishable Hope and the Gospel
The story of the human race is not of universal disappointment, but one of inextinguishable Hope. Every age has produced fairy tales. Something inside of us believes, or wants to believe, that the world we know is not the whole story. We long for the re enchantment of reality. We hope that death is not the end, that the universe is something more than an enclosed terrarium. So we keep spinning and repeating stories that hold the promise of another world. Fairy Tales aren't just about transformation about the world around us but about the transformation of central characters: frogs becoming princes, ugly ducklings become swans,etc.  These are all features the gospel has in common with fairy tales, with this one great difference: The gospel is true. The Kingdom of God is closer than you think. It is available to ordinary people and you can live in it-now.

This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, an ordinary human being can do extraordinary things. This is promised in the gospel-the Good News proclaimed by Jesus. "the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe the good news." The good news as Jesus preached it is that now it is possible for ordinary men and women to live in the presence and under the power of God. The good news as Jesus preached it is not about minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die. It is about the glories redemption of human life-your life.

It's morphing time.

10 Good Reasons to Obey God

Lord, help me to be disciplined enough to obey You the way You want me to so I can become the person You created me to be.

There is always a price to pay when we don't do the things we need to do and instead do what we feel like doing. We have to be willing to make sacrifices and sometimes do the things we rather not for the blessings we want. The good  news is we're not alone and we can ask the Holy Spirit to give us the grace to do it with ease. Even though God loves us no matter what, we won't sense His love for us if we are walking in disobedience to His ways.

10 Good Reasons to Obey God:

1.  We get our prayers heard. "If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear. But certainly God has heard me; He has attended to the voice of my prayers." Psalm 66:18-19
2. We enjoy and sense God's presence.  "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him and will come to him and make Our home with him."  John 14:23
3. We gain wisdom. "He stores up sound wisdom for the upright, He is a shield to those who walk uprightly." Proverbs 2:7
4. We have God's friendship.  "You are my friends if you do whatever I command you." John 15:14
5. We can live safely. "You shall observe my statutes and keep My judgements, and perform them; and you will dwell in the land in safety." Leviticus 25:18
6. We are perfected. "Whoever keeps His Word, truly the love of God is perfected in Him. By this we know we are in Him." 1 John 2:5
7. We are blessed. "Behold I set before you today a blessing and a curse; the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today." Deuteronomy 11:26-27
8. We find happiness. "Happy is He who keeps the law." Proverbs 29:18
9. We have peace. "Mark the blameless man, and observe the upright; for the future of that man is peace." Psalm 37:36
10. We have a long life. "My son do not forget my law, but let your heart keep my commands; for the length of days and long life and peace they will add to you." Proverbs 3: 1-2

Failure is not Final

At least there is hope for a tree. If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail" (Job 14:7, NIV).


No one wants to fail in life and no one looks forward to it but the reality is that we do and the success that could come from it all depends on how we handle our failures.

• Beethoven's music teacher once told him that he was a hopeless composer.

• Abraham Lincoln campaigned for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly and failed. He then opened a general store which failed after only a few months.

• Walt Disney was fired by the editor of a newspaper for lacking creativity.

• The Ford Motor Company was Henry Ford's third business. The first two didn't work out.

• A teacher told Thomas Edison that he was too stupid to learn anything.

• Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose" (NIV).- Romans 8:28