Path to a New Life

Change begins with the regenerate heart (spiritually reborn), for only the regenerate heart has the capacity for transformation into Christlikeness. When new life is resident in a person, it gives him or her both the desire and intention to be like Christ. This is why we insist that Christian spiritual formation is unique. It is that part of us that yearns for a closer relationship with God. Paul described the source of that longing:

He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Corinthians 5:15–17, NLT)

Faith as Action

Desire and intention prove they are real in action. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was fond of saying, “Only the obedient believe and only those who believe are obedient.… Faith is only real in obedience.”21 Faith is not faith unless it acts. This is what the apostle James clearly taught (see James 2:14–16). Jesus said that faith is following Him and answering the call to ministry (see Luke 9:23–27). If a person has a desire to be kind to a difficult person, then faith is to take specific actions of kindness toward that person. The faith of the Western church has often been reduced to intellectual agreement and divorced from action. That is the kind of faith that does not transform because it is not faith at all. A person’s immaterial nature or spiritual heart is transformed by acting in faith on its desire.

Desire is the beginning, and one right act prompted by that desire can make a difference in a person’s life and for those touched by that action. A single act of forgiveness can restore a life; a generous gift can turn a life around. But there is more to be done to turn these good actions into one’s character.

Bill Hull, “Spiritual Formation from the Inside Out,” in The Kingdom Life: A Practical Theology of Discipleship and Spiritual Formation, ed. Alan Andrews (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2010), 129–130.