The Spiritual
HABIT of Doing
by: Julie Cloninger, HFL Team
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Healthy Free Life Academy may seem like a strange context in which to think about spiritual formation, but actually, it is ideal. Our bodies are the house and the primary tool that God has given us to actualize the spirit life he made us for. This may sound a little oxymoronic, but I hope to unpack the truth of this. I love what Dallas Willard says in The Spirit of the Disciplines.
“It can’t be any other way. If salvation is to affect our lives, it can do so only by
How deep and wide is the love that God has for you! When God the father, son, and spirit decided that their love for one another needed to be shared and they made the world out of the outpouring of their love, they made a world with all sorts of beauty, majesty, and fascinating beings. The pinnacle of their creation was a being that was imaged after them. In their own image, they made humans- male and female. The plan was for us to live in union with God. Our bodies, minds, and spirits would be in union with God and he would enjoy us and we would enjoy him forever. But then, with our bodies, we turned away from God and we felt the shame and hid. We’ve been hiding ever since. We hide behind all sorts of things. Sometimes good things and sometimes not so good things. But we hide.
So how do we come out of hiding? How do we live in this world that is full of sin, sadness, and hardship? How do we live our lives today, in this world, in a way that pleases God? It is important to begin with God and his role in our lives.
God made everything possible- even our response to turn to him, see him, and love him. It is very, very, very important to know that first God loves you. He loved you before you were ever born. He loved you before you loved him. He loved you even when you never gave him a thought. He loves you now when you don’t pay any attention to him. In fact, he’s been loving you and planning your rescue mission for so long- thousands of years in fact. God has been rescuing his people since creation. Adam and Eve sinned and the terrible fall of all humans is what happened. No human has ever been born since then that isn’t broken and in need of rescuing (except one). I know you already know this. You know when you mess up, I’m sure. If you aren’t sure whether you mess up, just ask your friends, sisters, husband, or children. They’ll tell you! And that is the sad truth of it. We all mess up. We all sin. And that is why we all needed to be rescued. Thankfully, God began planning his GREAT RESCUE MISSION from the moment sin happened. He didn’t keep his plans secret, either. He began telling people as early as Noah and Abraham that he would send someone- a seed, a branch, a Great Shepherd, a child, a Savior, a king. There are so many things written in The Bible that foretell (prophesy) the arrival of Jesus so that when he did come, people