The Bible, of course, is not a theology book. It is certainly not a philosophy book. So we have to derive the meaning of terms from the context in use.

You can no more trust Jesus and not intend to obey him than you could trust your doctor and your auto mechanic and not intend to follow their advice. If you don't intend to follow their advice, you simply don't trust them. Period.

There is absolutely nothing in what Jesus himself or his early followers taught that suggests you can decide just to enjoy forgiveness at Jesus' expense and have nothing more to do with him.

Paul followed Jesus by living as He lived. And how did he do that? Through activities and ways of living that would train his whole personality to depend upon the risen Christ as Christ trained Himself to depend upon the Father.

If we reject the Christian answer, we still have the problem. We're going to adopt some alternative, because the questions will not go away, the questions of, "What kind of person am I becoming?" and "What is my role in that?" and so on.

The more we pray, the more we think to pray, and as we see the results of prayer-the responses of our Father to our requests-our confidence in God's power spills over into other areas of our life.

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.