Our Bible verse for today: “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him …” Luke 24:31 (CSB)
Our thought for today: “Living the ‘with-God’ life is possible.”
Please excuse me if I make this devotional message very personal. As I write this it is the morning of my sixty-fourth birthday. Now-a-days birthdays always put me in a reflective mood. They cause me to think back over the life I’ve had up to this point, and to think forward about the life I hope to have in the years to come. That’s where my mind is at this morning.
One theme that has become increasingly important to me at this stage in life is what Dallas Willard termed “The with-God Life”. That phrase, “The with-God Life”, became the theme around which Dallas’ lifework as a Christian thinker, philosopher, and writer, revolved.
“The with-God Life” is a life that is literally lived “with God” in a very real, very practical, and very experiential way. Through his own life experience, and as a result of his own close walk with the Lord, Dallas discovered that it is possible to know, hear, experience, and interact with God as the most important person in your life.
As we learn to live with God in this manner, we progressively experience what the disciples on the road to Emmaus experienced, “Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him …” We learn to hear God speaking to us in a thousand different ways; we learn to experience Him through the events of our lives; we sense His presence with us; and we come to know Him in ways we never have before. Our eyes are opened and our hearts are burning.
Dallas’ lifework of explaining, teaching, and modeling “The with-God Life” is so intriguing and compelling that his books not only became best sellers, but they have become classics of modern Christian literature. Beyond that, so many Christians over the last thirty years have had a hunger for that kind of life with God, that two graduate level schools have been created based upon the work of Dallas Willard. They are “The Dallas Willard Center for Christian Spiritual Formation” at Westmont College in California, and the “Renovare Institute for Spiritual Formation.” (You can Google both of them).
One of my remaining life goals is to participate in the two-year spiritual formation program sponsored by the Renovare Institute. I have had a vision for doing this for almost twenty years since I first learned of it. It is mostly online classes, video conferences, lots of private personal study, research projects, and four one-week on-campus sessions over the two years. It is an intensive two year program of deep spiritual development and it is done with a small group of students, living in different locations around the country, all working together and helping each other. Each year the program only accepts 45 students nationwide. The 2018-2020 class, which begins in August, is already full. I am applying for the 2019-2021 class and would appreciate your prayers. It is a highly competitive application process and only a small percentage of applicants are accepted. As I said, this would fulfill one of my remaining life goals.
We are all works in progress (me especially), and we should all be in a constant state of learning, growing, and developing in our spiritual maturity. A life well spent is a life lived in a close relationship with Jesus – the closer the better. I pray that will turn out to have been true for me, and I pray it will be true for you too.
Oak Hill Baptist Church