Practice Formation

Practice

1.

The actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, as opposed to theories relating to it.

2.

The customary, habitual, or expected procedure or way of doing of something.

3.

Repeated exercise in or performance of an activity or skill so as to acquire or maintain proficiency in it.

In Our Study we are going to look at the following ancient Christian Practices for Spiritual Formation:

1: The Practice of Slowing Down and Celebrating.

2: The Practice of Prayer and Confession.

3: The Practice of Meditating on Scripture and seeking Guidance.

4: The Practice of Servant hood and Freedom.

5: The Practice of an Undivided Heart.

A few years ago, the dominant interest of six-year-olds in the United States was a group of teenage superheroes called the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

The shows were an unlikely hit — originally produced on a very low budget in Japan, then badly dubbed into English.

The key to the show’s appeal was the characters’ ability to “morph.”

Ordinarily they were normal adolescents, but as needed they could access a power beyond themselves to become martial arts heroes for justice. Their rallying cry in moments of crisis was “It’s morphing time!” and they would be transformed with the ability to do extraordinary things.

The show became such a huge hit that the term morph has begun creeping into magazine articles and everyday conversations and may become part of our permanent vocabulary. It became a standard phrase around our house if someone was in need of serious attitude adjustment: “It’s morphing time.”

Of course, it is not just six-year-olds who want to morph. The desire for transformation lies deep in every human heart. This is why people enter therapy, join health clubs, get into recovery groups, read self-help books, attend motivational seminars, and make New Year’s resolutions. The possibility of transformation is the essence of hope. Psychologist Aaron Beck says that the single belief most toxic to a relationship is the belief that the other person cannot change.

This little word morph has a long history. It actually comes from one of the richest Greek words in the New Testament, and in a sense this little word is the foundation of this whole book.

Morphoo means “the inward and real formation of the essential nature of a person.”

It was the term used to describe the formation and growth of an embryo in a mother’s body.

Paul used this word in his letter to the Galatians: “. . . until Christ is formed in you.”

Galatians 4:19 BSB

19 My children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,

He calls them his children, as he justly might, since he had been the instrument of their conversion to the Christian faith; yea, he styles them his little children, which, as it denotes a greater degree of tenderness and affection to them, so it may possibly have a respect to their present behaviour, whereby they showed themselves too much like little children, who are easily wrought upon by the arts and insinuations of others.

He expresses his concern for them, and earnest desire of their welfare and soul-prosperity, by the pangs of a travailing woman:

He travailed in birth for them: and the great thing which he was in so much pain about, and which he was so earnestly desirous of, was not so much that they might affect him as that Christ might be formed in them, that they might become Christians indeed, and be more confirmed and established in the faith of the gospel.

From this we may note, 1.

The very tender affection which faithful ministers bear towards those among whom they are employed; it is like that of the most affectionate parents to their little children.

2. That the chief thing they are longing and even travailing in birth for, on their account, is that Christ may be formed in them; not so much that they may gain their affections, much less that they may make a prey of them, but that they may be renewed in the spirit of their minds, wrought into the image of Christ, and more fully settled and confirmed in the Christian faith and life: and how unreasonably must those people act who suffer themselves to be prevailed upon to desert or dislike such ministers!

3. That Christ is not fully formed in men till they are brought off from trusting in their own righteousness, and made to rely only upon him and his righteousness.

He agonized until Christ should be born in those people, until they should express his character and goodness in their whole being.

Paul said they — like us — are in a kind of spiritual gestation process.

We are pregnant with possibilities of spiritual growth and moral beauty so great that they cannot be adequately described as anything less than the formation of Christ in our very lives.

Paul used another form of this word when he told the Christians in Rome that God had predestined them to be “conformed to the image of his Son.”

Romans 8:29 BSB

29 For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.

Now those whom god thus foreknew he did predestinate to be conformed to Christ.

1. Holiness consists in our conformity to the image of Christ. This takes in the whole of sanctification, of which Christ is the great pattern and sampler. To be spirited as Christ was, to walk and live as Christ did, to bear our sufferings patiently as Christ did. Christ is the express image of his Father, and the saints are conformed to the image of Christ. Thus it is by the mediation and interposal of Christ that we have God’s love restored to us and God’s likeness renewed upon us, in which two things consists the happiness of man

This word, summorphizo , means to have the same form as another, to shape a thing into a durable likeness. Spiritual growth is a molding process: We are to be to Christ as an image is to the original.

Still another form of the word appears in Romans when Paul says we are not to be conformed to the world around us but “transformed by the renewing of your minds.”

Romans 12:2 BSB

2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

The mind must be renewed for him. This is pressed (v. 2): “Be you transformed by the renewing of your mind; see to it that there be a saving change wrought in you, and that it be carried on.”

Conversion and sanctification are the renewing of the mind, a change not of the substance, but of the qualities of the soul.

It is the same with making a new heart and a new spirit-new dispositions and inclinations, new sympathies and antipathies; the understanding enlightened, the conscience softened, the thoughts rectified; the will bowed to the will of God, and the affections made spiritual and heavenly:

so that the man is not what he was-old things are passed away, all things are become new; he acts from new principles, by new rules, with new designs.

The mind is the acting ruling part of us; so that the renewing of the mind is the renewing of the whole man, for out of it are the issues of life, Prov. 4:23.

The progress of sanctification, dying to sin more and more and living to righteousness more and more, is the carrying on of this renewing work, till it be perfected in glory.

This is called the transforming of us; it is like putting on a new shape and figure.

Metamorphousthe—Be you metamorphosed.

The transfiguration of Christ is expressed by this word (Mt. 17:2), when he put on a heavenly glory, which made his face to shine like the sun; and the same word is used 2 Co. 3:18, where we are said to be changed into the same image from glory to glory.

This transformation is here pressed as a duty; not that we can work such a change ourselves: we could as soon make a new world as make a new heart by any power of our own; it is God’s work, Eze. 11:19; 36:26, 27.

But be you transformed, that is, “use the means which God hath appointed and ordained for it.”

It is God that turns us, and then we are turned; but we must frame our doings to turn, Hos. 5:4.

“Lay your souls under the changing transforming influences of the blessed Spirit; seek unto God for grace in the use of all the means of grace.”

Though the new man be created of God, yet we must put it on (Eph. 4:24), and be pressing forward towards perfection.

Now in this verse we may further observe,

[1.] What is the great enemy to this renewing, which we must avoid; and that is, conformity to this world: Be not conformed to this world. All the disciples and followers of the Lord Jesus must be nonconformists to this world. Mē syschēmatizesthe—Do not fashion yourselves according to the world. We must not conform to the things of the world; they are mutable, and the fashion of them is passing away. Do not conform either to the lusts of the flesh or the lusts of the eye. We must not conform to the men of the world, of that world which lies in wickedness, not walk according to the course of this world (Eph. 2:2); that is, we must not follow a multitude to do evil, Ex. 23:2. If sinners entice us, we must not consent to them, but in our places witness against them. Nay, even in things indifferent, and which are not in themselves sinful, we must so far not conform to the custom and way of the world as not to act by the world’s dictates as our chief rule, nor to aim at the world’s favours as our highest end. True Christianity consists much in a sober singularity. Yet we must take heed of the extreme of affected rudeness and moroseness, which some run into. In civil things, the light of nature and the custom of nations are intended for our guidance; and the rule of the gospel in those cases is a rule of direction, not a rule of contrariety.

This word is metamorphoo, from which comes the English word metamorphosis. A creeping caterpillar is transformed into a soaring butterfly — yet as the children of God we are to undergo a change that makes that one barely noticeable.

When morphing happens, I don’t just do the things Jesus would have done; I find myself wanting to do them. They appeal to me. They make sense. I don’t just go around trying to do right things; I become the right sort of person.

These are audacious statements. Ordinary people can receive power for extraordinary change. It’s morphing time, Paul says.

To help people remember this, I developed a little liturgy at a church I served. I would say to the congregation, “It’s morphing time.” They would reply, “We shall morph indeed.”

The primary goal of spiritual life is human transformation.

It is not making sure people know where they’re going after they die, or helping them have a richer interior life, or seeing that they have lots of information about the Bible, although these can be good things.

Let’s put first things first.

The first goal of spiritual life is the reclamation of the human race.

It’s morphing time.

Not only that, but this goal can be pursued full-time.

For a long time in my own life a very bad thing happened: I had reduced my “tools for spiritual growth” to a few activities such as prayer and Bible study or a few periods of the day called a quiet time. I took an embarrassingly long time to learn that every moment of my life is an opportunity to learn from God how to live like Jesus, how to live in the kingdom of God. I had to discover that there are practical, concrete ways to help me “turn aside.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote:

Earth’s crammed with Heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes —

The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

The purpose of this book is to help you learn how to use every moment, every activity of life, for morphing purposes.