The spirit is the part that is supposed to consciously direct everything in the person, including the soul.

In Spiritual formation we are aiming at a character and life that is so shaped that the deeds of Christ routinely and easily come from what is inside.

You really can't justify anything else but giving your whole attention to spiritual formation in Christ.

The basic question 'will I obey Christ 's teaching?' is rarely taken as a serious issue. For example, to take one of Jesus' commands, that is relevant to contemporary life, I don't know of any church that actually teaches a church how to bless people who curse them, yet this is a clear command.

Unless you have already put God first, for example, what you will have to do to be financially secure, impress other people, or fulfill your desires will invariably lead you against God's wishes. That is why the first of the Ten Commandments, “You shall have no gods who take priority over me,” is the first of the Ten Commandments.

We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true.

There is no avoiding the fact that we live at the mercy of our ideas This is never more true than with our ideas about God.