Polemics - Discernment - Spiritual Formation / Contemplative Spirituality

The topic of spiritual formation, we're shifting gears a bit because we've been going through groups which do not teach a saving gospel. And now we're looking at more discernment within the church. And what we're finding here is a rather massive shift that's coming in stealth, unnoticed. a really rather shocking thing that's coming about here.

There are several different terms that you might come across, and it's possible others may come up as well. But one term is spiritual formation. In decades past, that term meant something else. I was talking to a professor at a brethren Bible college and telling him, this term has been hijacked. be careful about using it anymore because it's been hijacked. It used to be spiritual formation was something you could talk about and it was biblical. No longer. In recent decades that's been changed.

Contemplative spirituality is another term. Spiritual disciplines. Centering or centering down is another term that has come up. But anyway, several different terms. And so I call it spiritual something or other. Another term that I've come up with is Christian Buddhism.

It's come to be referred to as spiritual formation, SF, and that's how I'll refer it from here on out, is SF. Contemplative spirituality or spiritual disciplines has roots from centuries ago, but in recent decades has been propagated into evangelical seminaries, colleges, bookstores, churches, and parachurch ministries. In summary, it's Eastern and Roman Catholic mystic meditation that is cloaked in Christian verbiage, but which bypasses the role and authority of scripture and the intimacy of the identification truths. Some of the names that originated, and this is going in times past, only some up to the present, that originated this SF, Instrumental in promoting it in evangelical circles include St. John of the Cross, who is a Roman Catholic friar, priest, and saint.

By saint, I mean their designation. St. Teresa of Avila, that was the name of the Catholic church in Carson City, still is. Roman Catholic Carmelite nun, author, and saint, parallel in time with St. John of the Cross. More in our own time, Henry Nouwen, a Dutch-born Roman Catholic priest and prolific author.

He is one who is quoted by Chuck Swindoll quite frequently in the last decade and a half. Another name is Thomas Merton, an American Roman Catholic Trappist monk trained by a Hindu. and I won't even try to pronounce it. Brahmakari is probably the last name, but at any rate. Dallas Willard, more in our time. He spoke not too long ago, too many years ago, at Denver Seminary, among other places.

There's a building dedicated to him at Westmont. Eugene H. Peterson, still alive as far as I know, pastor and prolific author. He is the one who wrote The Message, among other things, if you come across that. Richard Foster, still alive. Brad Masten's dad shared an office with him at one point in time. And he's local. He has an institute, Renovara Institute, here in Denver. His background is Quaker. Quaker, sometimes called the Friends.

And then Sue Monk Kidd, she's still alive as far as I know. She's a prolific author. Her invention of wings was recommended by Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, as one of those recommended or featured books. So SF has been embraced by a large number of Christian schools and seminaries, including Biola University and Talbot Theological Seminary, Dallas, Grace Theological Seminary, that's where John Whitcomb was from, Moody Bible Institute, Denver Seminary. And the list is long, by the way. If I were to have the whole list, it's several pages long. Liberty University is another one that's made inroads there. I know of no seminary that's been established for very long or Bible college where it hasn't gotten entrenched. Prairie Bible Institute in Canada has been infiltrated.

Spiritual formation also has been embraced by these notable Christian personalities. Chuck Swindoll, he quotes liberally from Henry Nowen. David Jeremiah is another one, teaches and a lot of his messages are recorded and that sort of thing. He has bought out the seminary where my grandfather went in Southern California. But he's one who is now embracing the spiritual formation. Ravi Zacharias, who came out of Hinduism, is now introducing people back to it through spiritual formation. Priscilla Shirer, you may or may not have heard of her. She's an author that kind of worked with Beth Moore, and both of them embracing the spiritual formation.

Dave Ramsey, the financial guru that gets on television, has written books and has done radio programs and things like that. I would have various cautions about Dave Ramsey, but this is one of them. Rick Warren is another one. Rick Warren is very open to being involved with other religions and things of that sort.

He first did Purpose Driven Church, and that was read by mostly pastors and whatnot. I have a copy. Then he did purpose-driven life, and that went out more generally to the population, but since then he's done purpose-driven synagogue and things like that. So he's had no problem embracing all sorts of religious things. Then Larry Crabb, who previously was into Freudian psychology and things of that sort. Nancy transcribed some stuff by him and just went nuts because he He never finishes a thought, he's always going tangential. At any rate, he was previously promoting Freudianism, basically, in the church, and he's now left that, and now spiritual formation is what he has embraced. And he's another local.

We have essentially a hotbed of this you know, kind of thing happening here in Colorado. And then finally, Beth Moore. And there are many other names I could include, but that just is a sampling. Essentially, we've got high profile people in Christianity, people with, you know, history in churches and seminaries and people writing books and being speakers and people who recorded and put out over the radio and the internet and things of that sort.

All of them promoting the spiritual formation. So, at any rate, it's well entrenched. On to page 2 here. So exactly how is spiritual formation done? And this summary, by the way, is from Lighthouse Trails Research, which is probably one of the better websites out there exercising discernment about spiritual formation.

And so it's their statement, not the statement of those who are into spiritual formation. The how is done through spiritual disciplines, primarily through the discipline of the silence. The silence is an altered state that is reached through a mantra-like meditation, breath prayers, or some other meditative practice. And so in order to make a Christian, your mantra will be, you know, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, and you just keep saying it, and saying it, and saying it, and saying it, and saying it. So that makes a Christian. But basically it's Eastern meditation of a Buddhist or Hindu kind. The idea behind it is that if you go into this silent state, you will eliminate distractions, that is thoughts, and be able to hear God's voice directly. So it's by emptying your mind and then filling it with this mantra.

That's the sequence. He in turn, God in turn, will transform you to be like Christ. How do you get transformed to be like Christ? Biblically. Pardon? Believe is one, but what does scripture say? This is second Corinthians 318, beholding the Lord through his word, content, not emptiness. So, who can practice these disciplines and become like Christ? Anyone. According to spiritual formation pioneer Richard Foster and other proponents of spiritual formation, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, even an atheist, anyone at all can benefit from the spiritual disciplines and become like Christ. How do you like that so far? Okay, here's a polemicist, Roger Oakland. Roger Oakland is a writer. He used to be on radio for Calvary Chapel and they booted him out because he was pointing out things that they didn't like.

As the Word of God becomes less and less important, the rise in mystical experiences escalates, and these experiences are presented to convince the unsuspecting that Christianity is about feeling, touching, smelling, and seeing God. The postmodern mindset is the perfect environment for fostering spiritual formation. This term suggests there are various ways and means to get closer to God and to emulate Him. So the late spiritual formation promoter Thomas Merton wrote, I intend to become as good a Buddhist as I can.

What do you think about that? So actually it's a form of humanism, isn't it? It's very humanistic, because in reality it does not focus on truth content. It is about feelings and experiences and altered states of mind and things of that sort. So here's another set of quotes here, and this is picking out pieces admittedly.

It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race. Now I realize what we all are. If only they, people, could all see themselves as they really are, I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusions, a point of pure truth. This little point is the pure glory of God in us. It is in everybody. Wow. Yeah. Whoa. Anyway, yeah, really astounding. Astounding stuff.

And so this is being brought into Christianity where the content of the gospel, the content of the Word of God is deliberately set aside. Deliberately set aside in order to have this experience, this altered state of mind that is basically not fundamentally Christian. Anybody can have this kind of experience and it doesn't matter what their beliefs are. So it's just another way of saying that humans are divine, right? That's the point. You lose anything in terms of any distinctives of Christianity. Anything that makes Christianity distinct is set aside.

You're looking for the feeling and the experience and the altered state of mind and the realizations that come through this meditative process and so Bible things are kind of optional. Right, so in other words, if you have divinity in you and you can become divine and it's just a matter of working through these different ways of getting to that point and building it so that you become even more divine. Yes, right. And so the Bible becomes optional, it becomes peripheral rather than central. I can be transformed and I don't need the Bible. So, yeah, right?

Would you know how this is implemented in the seminaries and colleges? I mean, if they claim to be Bible teaching, and not only claim it, but actually do it, how do they put this in there? Increasingly, what is happening is, for example, take for instance, Westmont. They have a course that they want everybody to take in spiritual formation. It's this stuff, right? Yes. But then... And Dallas, you know, Dallas is so outspoken in so many things. Well, Dallas Theological Seminary had a president. His name was Chuck Swindoll, right?

And so there you see the channel of introduction. And so less and less focus on the content of scripture and more and more focus on things like this. And what happened is they said, well, just all your seminary studies just make an egghead out of you, and so this spiritual formation is required so that you actually have some spirituality. Well, just from personal experience, I was in Seattle, and the church we were attending was the gospel every week.

And I said, there's got to be more than this. And I attended one of these sessions where they had to sit and think, meditate, and think about God, think about what's good. I said so loud, I said slow. What am I thinking about? They said, well, focus on yourself. I said, I don't want to focus. And I laughed, you know, very constantly with it. It was confusing. Yes. Oh, it is. Well, and yeah, scripture becomes very optional rather than essential. Right? Yes.

But if you have If you do reading or do a Bible study and you're using the Bible and you said it, think about and meditate and discern the Word. There has to be a distinction there someplace. I think the distinction is you can meditate on content rather than meditating with the deliberate intent to empty yourself of thoughts. And so our mysticism, if you will, is beholding the Lord through his word. Beholding the Lord through his word, not trying to behold the Lord without content. And so therein is a great distinction.

Yes, in other words, if you look at 2 Corinthians 3.18, who is carrying out The transformation, it is the Holy Spirit, right?

That's what 2 Corinthians 3.18 is telling us. The Holy Spirit is carrying out the transformation as we behold the Lord through His Word. Content. Not, I'm doing this, and it's these special practices I do, and I empty myself of the Word and everything else. Right? Yes?

Can we use any scripture at all to back up They attempt to do so. It's essentially scripture twisting, because they'll look at certain ones, kind of twist it around to look for support for what they're doing, but they'll deliberately ignore the others that talk about, you know, the Word of God is alive and powerful and sharper than a two-edged sword, you know, piercing to the line between the soul and the spirit. That is exceedingly effective and powerful, as opposed to saying you've got to get that out of your head. So they twist some scriptures and ignore many others in order to get there. So let's compare this. I think it's really valuable to take a look at what does the Word of God say.

So here's Romans 8.28 and 29, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good, for those who love God to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son." So conformity to the image of His Son, how does that happen? God works through the various circumstances, right? So that's part one.

Second Corinthians 3.18, and this I use the expanded and explained so that we get the full sense of it. But all of us who are in Christ with a faith that is not veiled by the law, having died in relationship to the law and living by God's amazing grace, are right now continuing to behold as we read and hear the written word of God, seeing as one who looks into a mirror the glory, the radiant essence of who Christ is, the glory that comes from Christ himself, and we are in fact in the very process of being changed and transformed into the same spiritual character, growing from one level of Christ's glory to the next, every part of this beholding and transformation is from the God-given ministries of the Holy Spirit. Centered upon the Word, and this is the mysticism, that we look at the words of scripture and we see Christ in those, even if it's not directly talking about Christ, we see Christ in those and the Holy Spirit uses that to transform us. That's the mysticism.

Not we try to contact God directly and pushing out the word deliberately. and approach God without content. Without content. Yes? Would you repeat the way you just said there, how you define mysticism? Mysticism is us looking at the Word of God and beholding Christ in the Word Even if the passage that we're looking at doesn't directly even mention Christ, there is still a beholding of Christ in the Word.

And the other part of it that is mysticism is the Holy Spirit's work to transform us as we behold the Lord through His Word, and make us more and more into the image of Christ. Isn't the Holy Spirit showing us Christ? The Holy Spirit will direct us to Christ.

And so as we behold the Lord through His Word, that is a process that the Holy Spirit is also very involved in. Where did we get His Word? How did that come? His Word was inspired by the Spirit. So the origination of the Word of God is by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit focuses us upon Christ and teaches us at the heart about what is true and what is not, but it's all about content, right? And then the Holy Spirit uses that, another aspect of this mysticism, to transform us. It's the work of the Holy Spirit that we are transformed as a result of that.

Now, those are all things, when you say mysticism, those are all things that go beyond just, here's the printed words, right? Here's the printed words. So for someone to completely bypass that process and say that's transformation is completely jumping ship from scripture. Yes.

But then again, it's not that these people want to be more like Christ. They want to develop their self and their humanistic side to where they can become greater and more powerful and rise to a bigger paradigm. Let's ask this question. How do they know it's Christ? They have no idea if they're more like anything because there is no measuring standard anymore. They push that out. Whereas we have a basis here for saying we're being conformed and transformed into the image of Christ, two parallel processes aimed in the same direction, we have a basis for saying that.

They have no basis for saying what it is, spiritually. Accept themselves. Accept themselves. It is purely subjective or somebody trying to just take, okay, here's Buddhism and Hinduism and I'm going to cloak that in Christian lingo and introduce it to you and put it in the seminaries and put it in the churches and put it in the Christian colleges and we're going to call this Christianity. Yes. Yes. I have this special knowledge because I have emptied my mind and gained knowledge that I would not otherwise have.

And unless you've done that too, then you can't judge me on this. Right? And how many times did Paul talk about boasting? Is this not falling into that category of boasting? I mean, look what great things I am doing because I meditate. For by grace are you saved. Perfect tense, right? Completed past action, ongoing results on in the future, and that not of yourselves. The saved, therefore, by grace are you saved. You're receiving the action. God does the saving, not me. It's not of ourselves, lest any man boast. It's not of me. It's not of me.

Here's Colossians 2, 1-4, and I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery. Biblically, what's a mystery? It's a truth not previously revealed, but now made plain and clear and put out in the open. That is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument. Christ Himself, by content, and this is Scripture saying it, putting our focus on Him.

Colossians 2.8, see to it that no one takes you captive, and there are various words for captive. This one means captive by pirates or thugs, right?

Through philosophy and empty deception. Empty? Oh boy, that sounds like spiritual formation. According to the tradition of men, Buddhist, Hindu, Roman Catholic, mystic, spiritual formation, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ. These are traditions of men, they're not out of scripture. But it's not according to Christ. This puts spiritual formation off as a non-Christian, an anti-Christ activity.

I was just going to say, this brings all religions together under one head, so if you really want a one world religion, this is really... This is a setup for the anti-Christ. One more religion? Easy. Let's just put Christian names on this Eastern stuff, and get all these Eastern guys included, and we've got a religion here, and it really focuses on deifying man. Deifying man.

Here is Colossians 3.16, let the word, that is the message, of Christ richly dwell within you. So, do I want to empty myself of all thought, or do I want the message of Christ to dwell in me richly? Which one is it? Right? Let the word, the message, the content of Christ richly dwell within you, not emptying myself deliberately.

With all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another, that's content, With psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. It also says, instead of a mantra, the songs that we sing are actually teaching. It's teaching and admonishing. That's what our songs are doing. And it's from the word of Christ, which is to dwell in our hearts richly. Alright, let's take a look at the last page there.

Hebrews 4.12 For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Does the word of God go deep? It goes deeper than your seminary test. Deeper than your seminary test.

1 Peter 2.2, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the Word so that by it you may grow in respect of salvation. Am I going to grow by the content of God's Word or by shoving it out?

What does this verse say? It's the content. Absolutely. And that long for is an imperative. You must. grace-motivated imperative you must long for the pure milk of the word so that by it content you may grow with respect to your salvation. 2 Peter 3 17 and 18 uses the same word grow but makes it an imperative so it says you therefore beloved knowing this beforehand be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the air of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. but grow, imperative, same word but as an imperative, grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Is it content or pushing out the content? Grace and knowledge. It's content, isn't it? To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.

One of the illustrations we use, and I put on the back there, is facts, faith, and feelings. We put our faith in the spiritual facts, revealed in scripture, and the feelings follow. What this does is puts the facts out. So your faith can't be in the facts because you've deliberately pushed the facts out. And so what is your faith in? Your faith is in your feelings and your experiences and those kinds of things.

It does. It does. As a matter of fact, that's what some of the disciplines are. The disciplines are essentially putting laws and rules in place that are not from scripture. and leaves you open to demonic influences, but one of the things I would say, while it certainly leaves you open to demonic influences, Satan's not worried. Someone gets into this, he says, I gotcha. Spiritual formation pursues feelings, altered states of consciousness, and experiences placing faith in the emptiness of the believer's mind from facts, instead of faith in the facts. That is the exact opposite of faith in the biblical facts.

Our intimacy of position with Christ is accomplished by our identification with His death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding. The believer has a basis in his position for intimacy with Christ and His conditions. In our position we have an intimacy already. The moment we believed, We have an intimacy with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding that never goes backwards. And we can grow in that intimacy that is already true of us in our position. And it doesn't get any more intimate than for you to share a spiritual history, have your old history in Adam replaced by your new history in Christ. To have a new spiritual history by having been identified with Christ, that's intimacy. That's intimacy with Christ. So much so that Paul can write, you're seated with Christ in the heavenlies. It's no longer I who do the living, but Christ does the living in me.

Galatians 2.20.

So spiritual formation is trying to bring about something that is emptiness, that is really Buddhism and Hinduism, extinguishing and ignoring the distinction that Christianity has, no other religion, if you will, can offer. Setting that aside. And now we're going to join in with the Hindus and the Buddhists.

By the way, does Islam have its version of this? Yes. Islam has its version of this, and as a matter of fact, there is nothing about this that would be contrary to Islam ultimately. And it already has its version of it. So, yeah, this is a perfect introduction to one world religion.

So if you were to sit down with any of these personalities, and question them on how they would validate their positions on this, what do you think their responses would be? That would be very interesting, because I think one of the reasons why you'll get these high profile Christians embracing spiritual formation in all its equivalent terms, is because they have not understood some of the very things we've talked about here this morning, that we've been identified with Christ, that we already have a positional intimacy. Here at Holly Hills, we bring out from Scripture, it's not something we invented, we bring out from Scripture, grace is the operating system, absolute, complete, total grace is the operating system. And we've been identified with Christ and his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding in that order.

And that is complete and total. It is not just partial and it's not just a concept. It's something that's actually been accomplished. Replacing our old history in Adam with this new history. The old history is completely gone. And they haven't understood that. Scripture says it, so we're not inventing anything here. But the reality is they never went there. They never understood it. And beholding the Lord through his word, they never understood it. And so as a result, they're saying, well, I need something more. Well, yes, you do. And so they've gone outside of Christianity and reintroduced it into Christianity. in order to accomplish this.

Two things. One, that kind of does away with faith, because if you are doing it through faith and allowing God to do the work, then you aren't doing it yourself. This is almost a works-centered... That's right. This is very works-centered. It's you do it, which is, you know, if you look at, here's the, Buddhism has its eight-fold path to enlightenment, right? and you follow this eightfold path and ultimately you hope to reach Nirvana. Hinduism has something similar, you know, they're hoping to reach Moksha. So you've got this enlightened state that you're pursuing, but it's all your own work. It is all your own work. And it's really cool because it's Christ the thing that you're achieving here, supposedly, right?

Yeah, and if you look at biblical Christianity, it's everything from Him, nothing from me. And to make sure it's nothing from me, all I did was believe. You've been crucified with Christ, and it starts there. God says the most gracious and marvelous thing you could possibly do is to crucify us first. Get us out of the way.

And then it's all Him. classes or books don't fall into this category? Who are reputable teachers or books? Yeah, and I think ultimately, you know, you say, you know, here's the Word, right? Here's the Word, and you want to look for people that are focusing you upon the Word and bringing out grace and identification and position and condition. And if they do that, then they're good teachers of the word.

There was a time when I would have said Chuck Swindoll was fine, but his writings of the last decade and a half or so are all bringing in this Eastern practices, or you could also call it... Obviously, we all can't start out really focused, but... Yeah, and probably several of these, there would be some time in the past where I would have said, you know, these are okay. These are good, but not anymore.

You know, there was a time when Dallas Seminary would be a pretty decent seminary to go to. However, okay, Dallas Seminary did not get it straight about grace, and about identification, and about position and condition. A lot of guys came out of there with a lot of conservative teaching, but not that.

Example, the church where I grew up in, about two years before I was born, they called up John Waldron. and said, hey, who do you recommend? We're looking for a pastor. And so they recommended Ray Steadman. So he was the pastor as I was growing up there, and they brought others on staff. But Ray Steadman was not quite on target in a few different areas.

And now, of course, he's home with the Lord, but the church has completely slid off the tracks. It's kind of this phenomenon where if you're one degree off from your landing at Honolulu, where are you going to end up? Out in the water, right? That's all it takes is one degree off at the start, and by the time you get farther down the road, you're way off track. And so that is, I think, what happens to churches, to seminaries. If they don't get everything nailed down before long, they're heading off track. They're trying to fix the old creation and don't realize there is a new creation.

And in the end, you can have all these theologies, and you can even have something that's supposedly conservative. But if you've missed the boat, our identification with Christ is multiple times throughout the New Testament. Our identification with Christ begins in the Gospels. Here's Jesus in John 15 saying, abide in me. So that's an exhortation to abide in our condition according to our position. He talks in John 17 where he's praying to the Father. He talks about I and you and you and me and we and them and all those. So he talks about identification. The Apostle Paul explains it. Peter writes about those who are in Christ.

So you see it in the New Testament that people don't put it together and then they go around looking, where's the intimacy? Because they didn't see it in God's Word. And, you know, you can end up going to seminary, and you go and take a bunch of tests, and write papers, and, you know, you do all the right stuff, but, you know, if your professors do not have an intimacy with Christ, they're going to go looking for it, or the students will, and that's what's happened. They have not had people who have had a walk with the Lord and they understand the basis of intimacy in the New Testament.

Yes. That by itself is not enough, is it? Just knowing stuff, right? And so, yeah, you'll have a professor and he's gone to X, Y, and Z universities and seminaries and whatnot. Guys that will have two, three doctorates. Very well educated fellows, but they don't understand grace and they don't understand identification, they don't understand position and condition, and they lead everybody else astray. By failing to have those essentials. Christ, so to speak, which is what Jesus is talking about in his dissertation to the disciples.

Can you go in a little bit more about Islam? How does it fit into Islam? Islam has a spectrum. Just like Christianity is not monolithic, it's not uniform and the same all the way through, Christianity has all kinds of variety, and I'll call it Christendom. Within Islam, lots of variety. There's the Sunni-Shiite distinction, and each one considers the other to be so infidel that the other is not really a Muslim. So there's that big distinction, but within there, there's a whole spectrum. And you get into Sufism, which is the more meditative branch of Islam. You've heard of the whirling dervishes.

You've probably heard of that. That's another one of those seeking a particular state of consciousness. And so there is within Islam some of that perspective as well. So this would be practiced by the Mullahs and stuff, probably? Yeah, certain ones. In other words, it's those who would look for more mystical experiences. You've also got the others who are more into, well, we've got to go out and do our jihad thing, right? So you've got a spectrum within Islam. Islam is not monolithic, just like Christianity is not monolithic. I say monolithic, all of one kind. Lots of variety within Christendom and lots of variety within Islam.

Spiritual formation, is that well known, the terminology? Yeah, it's a term that they use. It's not the only term. The other ones I put at the top of the page are contemplative spirituality. These churches that practice this belief, the mysticism, they use the term spiritual formation. They will use that as one of the terms. Centering, centering down, which is actually an eastern term. Centering prayers. So they'll talk about that.

And by the way, this spiritual formation stuff is very individual. We get together as a church body, and there's something spiritually goes on when we gather together, having to do with teaching and things of that sort. But the spiritual formation stuff is very individual, and yet those who practice it feel like it makes a connection with other people. Typically because you begin seeing the divine in others and things of that sort.

When we were in Idaho at the Nazarene University, they do have a course right in the university in spiritual formation. You can get bachelors to doctorate degrees in spiritual formation now. go way, way into it. So, yeah, a lot of the places will offer a course in it. A lot of the seminaries now are starting to offer anything from bachelors, masters, and on into a doctorate in spiritual formation. They also have a book, I mentioned it to you too, holiness.

And that maybe came from, comes from this, I don't know. It sounds like it's got to fit right in. Yeah, well, the Renovare Institute is here in Denver. It was founded by Richard Foster. And so there's a lot of this mindset of renovating something. Well, wait a minute, didn't God do the renovating when I believed? Right?

So then you're concocting something else that somehow replaces or improves upon what God has done. But then again, Vern, you can't see that. So a lot of people get frustrated and they turn away from faith because this is happening but you don't see it. And so you're saying Where's all this going? If I just do this, and if I do this, then I'm going to be able to grow faster, and become greater, and bigger. All those things that human beings want to be. But not faith. There is a point of faith, but it's not faith in God, and faith in what God is doing, and what God has done, and will do.

It's faith in myself, essentially. And because you, spiritual formation, you pull it all off. It's all your accomplishment. Yeah, so it's something that, you know, I think it's one of the reasons why here at Holly Hills we talk about what grace is, and it's total and absolute.

It's our operating system, not one law. We talk about our identification with Christ, which is God, that is God-produced intimacy. We have in our position in Christ that intimacy, but God did it, not me. All I did was believe. God says, that's fine, I'll take care of the rest. Everything from God, nothing from us. That's what God has in mind.

And not spiritual formation, which is all about what I do, and thinking about me. So when you talk about Buddhism and some of these Eastern things, is it more like, I won't have any emotions, and I'm going to be nice to my neighbor? What is their teaching?

Well, if you look at Buddhism, Buddhism has certain practices. Buddhism also works, however, with something that's very different from the Christian perspective, and that is reincarnation. In Buddhism, there's Mahayana, Hinayana, Theravada, and Zen. Those are some of the major breakdowns within Buddhism. And so some of those believe in a God.

It's a non-personal God. So that's something else that's kind of different. And one of the reasons why you can have in Buddhism this desire to empty yourself is there's no God with personality. Whereas in Christianity, I am in Christ, I'm in the Spirit and I'm in the Father, I'm indwelt by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and not only that, talking about personality, I'm made in His image. Let us, the Trinity said, make mankind in our image. And so there are things about me, we'll be touching on them in the next lesson here, there are things about who I am made to be that are based on who God is, and we'll talk about what those things are. And God is a personal God, doesn't mean He's a limited God, He's infinite, but He's a personal God, and He is deeply personally involved with me. And He gets involved through the content of scripture. Yes, It makes me think of Psalm 2 where it talks about the nation's rage and they say, we will not have Him over us.

It's very definite that we will have spiritual things, but we won't have the Christ. That's right. So yeah, you'll have people say, oh I'm very spiritual, but it has nothing to do with Christ. And that's essentially what spiritual formation is. It's instead of Christ, who put the focus on the Word. Thy Word is truth. He said to the Father. Instead of putting the focus on the content of the Word and making that essential to our salvation, essential to our growth, essential to our transformation and confirmation to the image of Christ, the Word of God is set aside entirely. set aside entirely. So it is not God's intent. Huge difference. Huge difference.

And it's because of the shallow teaching, the teaching that glances shallow, the teaching that lacks, that people are looking for something else to put in there as a substitute. And they're finding something that connects to a lot of other religions, particularly the Eastern ones or the mystical Catholic background. They're finding things in there that are answering what they didn't have answered before. So, yeah, that's what's happening.

So, we've got people starting to get interested in coming in here, so let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that we can have clarity. And thank you, too, that when we pray to you, it's not just a vain repetition, and it's not just emptiness, and it's not seeking the emptiness, but instead the very content of your word. is what directs us to absolute, pure, total grace, intimacy with you that cannot be excelled or exceeded, and personal relationship with you. And we just pray, Lord, that we would be continually drawn to behold you in your word and thereby be transformed. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.