Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ’s Pattern for Spiritual Transformation
Overview
Perhaps your spiritual life is not all you want it to be. Your sporadic successes, plateaus, and dry spells only lead to more frustration. Trusted spiritual guide Dallas Willard believes the main reason we fail in our spiritual life is that we don’t examine carefully the roles played by all five elements of our person: heart, mind, body, social life, and soul. Real change comes when we give each element thoughtful and prayerful exposure to God’s transforming work.
Revolution of Character enables you to dwell reflectively on each of the five elements, understand its role, train it in new patterns, and seek God’s transforming power. This holistic approach will produce new ways of responding to life and will result in profoundly changed character.
The Logos Bible Software edition of this volume is designed to encourage and stimulate your study and understanding of spiritual disciplines. Scripture passages link directly to your English translations and to the original language texts, and important concepts link to dictionaries, encyclopedias, and a wealth of other resources in your digital library. In addition, you can perform powerful searches by topic and find what other authors, scholars, and theologians have to say about faith, meditation, and Christlikeness.
- Seeks to assist the reader in interacting with Renovation of the Heart
- Explores Dallas Willard’s teachings while offering additional study material
- Includes questions for meditation and response following each chapter
- A Revolution Has Begun
- The Heart, Center of Our Life
- A Magnificent Ruin
- Restoration of the Soul
- Christ’s Pattern for Spiritual Transformation
- The Battle for Our Thought Life
- Educating Our Feelings
- Transforming Our Character
- The Body, Our Primary Ally in Christlikeness
- Changing How We Relate to Others
- Transforming the Soul
- Being the Light of the World
Top Highlights
“Matthew 11:28–30). What we thought was so difficult about entering fully into the divine life is entirely due to our failure to understand and take the small steps that quietly but surely lead to our transformation.” (Page 11)
“Spiritual formation in Christ is the process leading toward that ideal end—the self fully integrated and attuned to God. To mature in spiritual formation means to love God with all of the heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love one’s neighbor as oneself.” (Page 26)
“But, to reemphasize because it is so important, our aim is not first to act differently but to become different in our inner being. We’re not just learning how to be nicer versions of our old selves. We’re dealing radically with the fundamental wrongness of human life left to itself and introducing the kingdom of righteousness that is Christ into the depths of our heart. It is the inner life that counts. That is where profound transformation must occur.” (Page 18)
“Single-minded and joyous devotion to God and his will—and to service to others because of him—is what the will transformed into Christlikeness looks like.” (Page 117)
“The revolution of Jesus is first and always a revolution of the human heart. His revolution does not proceed through the means of social institutions and laws—the outer forms of our existence—intending that these would then impose a good order of life upon people who come under their power. Rather, his is a revolution of character, which proceeds by changing people from the inside through ongoing personal relationship with God and one another. It is a revolution that changes people’s ideas, beliefs, feelings, and habits of choice, as well as their bodily tendencies and social relations. It penetrates to the deepest layers of their soul.” (Pages 13–14)
- Title: Revolution of Character: Discovering Christ’s Pattern for Spiritual Formation
- Authors: Dallas Willard and Don Simpson
- Publisher: NavPress
- Publication Date: 2005
- Pages: 200
Dallas Willard is a professor and former director of the School of Philosophy at The University of Southern California. He is the best-selling author of more than 30 publications, including The Divine Conspiracy, The Spirit of the Disciplines, and Hearing God.
Don Simpson is a senior developmental editor for NavPress. He helped launch Discipleship Journal, The Small Group Letter, and cofounded Helmers & Howard Publishers.
