Think Again!

174 • Think Again: Transformation That Yields a Return on God’s Investment

God’s Kingdom would become the order and power of my mind and my life.”

C. “The disciplines do not confirm their value to those who only talk about them or study them ‘academically’ or hear others talk about them. One has to enter them with Jesus as teacher to find the incredible power they have to change one’s world and character. They are self-confirming when entered in faith and humility. And you don’t really need much of faith and humility if you will just stay with them. They will do the rest because they open us to the Kingdom. This is an extension of Jesus’s emphasis on doing as a way of knowing the Kingdom. We will be able to do what he says to do as we are inwardly transformed by following him into his life practices of solitude, service, study, and so forth. This is an essential part of what Paul calls ‘offering our bodies as living sacrifices’ (Rom. 12.2). It will result in the mark of the disciplined person, who is able to do what needs to be done when and as it needs to be done.” D. “In particular, I had learned that intensity is crucial for any progress in spiritual perception and understanding. To dribble a few verses or chapters of Scripture on oneself through the week, in church or out, will not reorder one’s mind and spirit – just as one drop of water every five minutes will not get you a shower, no matter how long you keep it up. You need a lot of water at once and for a sufficiently long time. Similarly for the written Word.” E. “In particular I did not understand the intensity with which they must be done, nor that the appropriate intensity required that they be engaged in for lengthy periods of undistracted time on a single occasion. Moreover, one’s life as a whole had to be arranged in such a way that this would be possible. One must not be agitated, hurried,