Thinking, Feeling, Willing
Thursday, October 8, 2009 at 08:01AM Earlier this week, I shared a small clip from Leslie Weatherhead's book The Resurrection and the Life and asked you to consider how your life has been changed by knowing Jesus.
Today I want to share another quote from that book that gets us thinking about how the presence of Jesus changes our thoughts, our feelings, and our wills:
Everybody knows a little psychology these days. Everybody knows that his real “self” is made up of thinking, feeling, and willing. Nowadays Christ does not often “appear” to people, but he visits their thoughts; and then they're thinking about other people and about life, and the world is broad and noble and true. He visits their feelings, and then they find they can get on better with difficult folk. They are more tolerant of people with a different outlook; they feel a deep sense of joy and serenity, and are not so easily ruffled and made hectic. He visits their will and they are not concerned with just their own private and selfish ambitions. They hate the evils in the world that make men miserable and deprive them of happiness and the means to live a full life, and they determine in his name to build a new world where God's good gifts can be shared among the men of all nations and his will be done on earth.
Christ comes now in his spirit to men and women at such a depth of personality that they are often unconscious that he has been there, but in depths of their being he is doing the same thing that he did when he lived in Palestine. He is changing men's lives, altering their reactions to life.
Has this been your experience? Are there times in your life when you've noticed a change in your thoughts because Jesus presented himself in your mind? Are there times when your feelings toward others, yourself, or your circumstances changed because Jesus made himself known to you? Are there times where your perspective on life broadened and your will to make a difference came about because of Jesus?
Feel free to share stories in the comments section. We'd love to hear how this has happened for you.
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Reader Comments (2)
I just wanted to stop by and say I enjoy your posts on Leslie Weatherhead's writing. I've shared some of my own thoughts on "The Transforming Friendship" on my own blog. In fact, I was led to yours by one of your colleagues who found me while searching for Weatherhead's books. It is good to find a kindred spirit in the blog-o-sphere! God's blessings to you!
Wally,
I agree with the Weatherhead's quote from above; "Nowadays Christ does not often “appear” to people, but he visits their thoughts". But I don't believe that is by design. That is a result of God continuing to do his part to allow the "river of life" to flow into our lives even when we dam up the tributaries (sp ?) and streams. River water is never going to stop. It keeps flowing and finds a way to go somewhere. And sometimes the water gets out of the banks when we are totally *damned* up (gotta be a sermon there eh?) OR the dam breaks (God uses big things in our life to get our attention). Anyway, the idea here is to see Jesus sitting next to us as we begin our day (my buddy Keith sets an xtra cup of coffee down for Jesus each morning), then he is next to us driving to work (if you forget to unlock the passenger door he won't forget to hop in, we will just forget he is there). In fact, the challange to live is to remember HE is always there. We just forget. Then, we try to go it alone (that's a recipe for disaster). HE wants to help. Everytime. He just helps in different ways. He : advises, counsels, corrects, encourages, pushes us forward, holds us back.... you get the idea.
Imagine this.... for all the lonely people in the world...... you don't have to be lonely...ever... HE is a consultant, counselor, advisor, friend, auditor, PR, creative designer, ..... you get the idea...
oh well... this I am sure of.... this is not the correct way for anyone to post... it's just that this experiment is getting out of hand... and I love it!
PRAYER: Dear God, please lead Wally and any others that are a part of this project to "be" so you can use them to "do".