Human Personality

You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator (Colossians 3: 9-10). The biblical record always presents the relationship between God and the believer as a friendship or family tie rather than one person taking care of another’s needs. Biblical personalities from Adam to the apostles Paul and John form a millennia-long saga of God’s invading human personality and history on a one-to-one basis. There is nothing general or secondhand about the divine encounters with Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Nehemiah, Mary or Peter. The saga continues to our day in the lives of leaders in the spiritual life. When we consider Teresa of Ávila, Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther, George Fox, Phoebe Palmer, Frank Laubach, A. W. Tozer or Henri Nouwen, we see persons who regard personal communion and communication with God as life-changing episodes and as daily bread. Untold thousands of humble Christians who will never preach a sermon or have their name appear in print can testify to the same kinds of encounters with God as are manifested by the great ones in the Way.  —Dallas Willard, Hearing God Through the Year

Add my name to that list. Add the names of so many patients who’ve come through Sanctuary Clinics—our lives, having encountered Jesus powerfully, our stories being rewritten in His love and grace, now serving as testimonials of God’s faithfulness. My heart’s desire is that you will find yourself within God’s larger narrative as you recognize HIs love for you. The Colossians passage Willard references is instructional: Paul uses a clear and clever word-picture for the Christian’s new life: “Take off, put on.” Like changing garments, in Christ we’ve taken off the old self, the sinful self, like pulling off dirty clothes and slipping into clean and fresh garments. While this is a work of God—washing us—there is a part in the process, a ‘putting off’ and a ‘putting on’ that we can partner in, believing, seeking, appropriating and walking in this new relationship, the new garments Christ has figuratively clothed us in. May this be our prayer: Wash me, Lord. Dress me in grace. Have me cooperate and not resist the renewing of my mind, heart, and life. —DH