“He Must Increase, I Must Decrease” or “What’s the point of spiritual practice?”

I have been asked to write a short reflection on my personal “theology of spiritual formation.” I believe it will be appropriate to begin by considering what “spiritual formation” might really mean and then to discuss how I personally see it as being pursued.

I guess in order to consider the topic of spiritual formation it might be well to begin by considering what needs to be formed. I will begin by a personal reflection. I have spent many years in pursuit of a spiritual solution to a fundamental sense of unease that has plagued me my entire life. One of the reasons I so enjoyed reading Nouwen’s Making All Things New is because Nouwen is very astute at identifying the source of this unease: loneliness. This loneliness really manifests the experiential consequence of the Enlightenment project: that I exist as an individual in the world, separated from and in competition with all others.

I found my own experience to be precisely as it was described by Nouwen: that I felt a need to validate my existence in the world by trying to prove to anyone who would listen that I was significant in some way. I spent my whole life pursuing achievements to prove my worth. I have been successful at academia, at business, and to some extent at life as we understand it in suburban America, but no matter what I was able to achieve I was not able to assuage the sense of unease, because the solution does not lie in magnifying my individuality, rather the opposite. In fact, if the sense of being an individual in competition with others is the problem, obviously strengthening that sense cannot bring about a solution.

Just so I don’t give the impression that I believe my experience of uniqueness and its antidote is unique, we can find the Apostle Paul expressing the same sentiment:

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. (Phil. 3:3-9 NIV)

Worldly accomplishments can bring temporary satisfactions. At various times I have felt that I had finally “arrived.” But inevitably I have always found myself drawn back into the endless cycle of self-doubt and self-condemnation, struggling to prove myself worthy and ultimately finding myself wanting. I think we can see Paul also identifying this condition in Romans:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. (Romans 7:15-23 NIV)

Fortunately Paul also identifies the solution to our dilemma: “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25 NIV) And I think we get a final view of the solution from Paul’s letter to the Galatians: ^“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal. 2:20 NIV)

So here I think we see an entire theology of spiritual formation: the problem of loneliness, the false solution of acquiring significance through personal achievement, and the true solution of finding myself in Christ.

So the next thing is, what does it mean to be in Christ? This has everything to do with the understanding of the Church as the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is not a metaphor, it is real. Christ is the head of this body (Col. 1:18) and all of the people in it are its members. When we refer to members here we are not thinking of the term in the way you would think of membership in an organization, like membership in a civic club or political party, for example, but as members of a body, like the relationship of the foot to the whole. (Ro. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12-27) All of the members are important, there are no superfluous members, nor is any one member of more importance than the others. Just like the different members of the body have different roles, all of the members of the Church have gifts (Ro. 12, 1 Cor. 12) all of which are for the common good (1 Cor. 12:7). Altogether the different members make up the real body of Christ on earth, which continues the work of Christ in advancing the Kingdom of God. To be in Christ means to be fully realized as a member of the Body of Christ. When we pray “Thy Kingdom come” we must also be praying that we as members of the Body of Christ are advancing that Kingdom in union with the whole Body.

So the solution to my problem is to lose my sense of lonely isolation and find my identity as a member of the Body of Christ. That is exactly what spiritual formation is about. Several years ago I came to this realization: that the only way I was ever going to have peace (shalom) in my life was going to be by complete surrender of my will to Christ. And I realized after only a couple of decades of trying that I could not accomplish that surrender on my own so I needed to develop spiritual discipline. And so I became interested in spiritual disciplines.

Now, I probably should mention that I am not a stranger to spiritual disciplines. Going back a number of years to when I still had a full head of hair that had real color I have almost continuously been initiating various attempts to practice spiritual disciplines. Before I became a Christian I studied and practiced Zen Buddhism and have also dabbled in other Eastern meditative disciplines as well as Native American spirituality. When I became a Christian I tried different Christian practices such as praying the office, centering prayer, lectio divina, various daily devotionals such as Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest, etc. All of these techniques have their own intrinsic value but none of them can have much effect without discipline. And that was where I was lacking.

I was presented with the example of two friends who had spent many years making a real discipline out of spiritual practice and, driven by finding myself once again in the desolate place Paul describes in Romans Chapter 7 I decided to begin making a real discipline out of my spiritual devotional practices. I did this by setting aside a physical space where I could practice my devotions. I have a little table and a chair and a cross and a candle. Then I bought a book entitled Forty Days to a Closer Walk with God: The Practice of Centering Prayer by J. David Muyskens. This book does introduce the practice of centering prayer but also encourages journaling and lectio divina and I highly recommend it.

I used that book religiously in order to further that journey of spiritual formation. I started setting my alarm one half hour earlier than usual (now it’s even earlier) every day so that I could start my day every day with spiritual practice. At first it was hard because my mind kept coming up with reasons why I couldn’t do it but as time has passed I have found my inner resistance is almost gone and my sense of the value of it increasing. I have since from time to time been trying different spiritual practices. Today I start my session with a little liturgy I found, then I do some scripture reading from a formal reading plan, a little prayer session (often praying the scripture), then I practice 20-30 minutes of meditation. Meditation means praying for the intervention of the Holy Spirit while focusing on the words “grace and peace.”

I have tried various practices like praying the scripture which I found to be helpful if you have the right scripture (like Ps. 51, for example) and using a prayer book like John Bailey’s A Diary of Private Prayer (which, although it expresses profound sentiments, I find off putting because of the archaic language). I am still just a baby at this but I do start my day with 40 minutes of devotions every day. I have had a couple of friends and acquaintances comment on how I seem different (in a positive way) and I attribute that to the daily discipline.

The last thing I want to write about on this topic has to do with what exactly is it that I am trying to accomplish by utilizing these techniques? For the answer to that I go back to Nouwen and confirm that the whole point of spiritual practices is to make a space where the Holy Spirit can work within me so that I can be conformed to the image of Christ (Ro. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18). In the end that transformation is the process of becoming less and less identified with the body of sin and more and more identified as a functioning member of the Body of Christ. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30 ESV) So just like Paul points out in 1 Cor. 12:7 the point of this activity is not to make me feel better but for the common good; to advance of the Kingdom of God.

“I Am Not Ashamed of the Gospel”

This seems like an odd thing for a Christian to say he is not ashamed of the gospel but is it really? How often do we feel uncomfortable in our faith? We are surrounded by a culture that thinks the gospel story is a fairy tale and anyone who believes it is cracked. It can be uncomfortable to live a gospel-centered life. Sometimes we may be tempted to downplay our devotion to Jesus in order to “fit in.”

Paul lived in a world that was very similar to ours. The Jews thought the idea of a Messiah who was crucified was offensive. The Greeks thought that the idea God has raised anyone from the dead and brought about universal salvation was just silly. Yet Paul was never deterred from preaching the gospel exactly as he had received it. He didn’t try to explain it away to make it seem more reasonable. He trusted that if he told the story God would make it effective.

So there is this idea that salvation comes from trusting that this preposterous story is really true. What Paul knew and what we also must know is that the ability to believe is a gift from God, and that our part in our salvation is to publicly trust God’s promises. That’s what it means to live a life of faith, and it’s not easy. Join us this Sunday May 27, 2012 at 11:00AM at the Rock Presbyterian Church 6910-B Miramar Rd., San Diego, CA 92121 as we consider what Paul means when he writes “the righteous shall live by faith.”

Grace and Peace

This Sunday we will begin a teaching series on Paul’s letter to the Romans. Martin Luther called Romans “the most important piece in the New Testament” and said of it “It is impossible to read or to meditate on this letter too much or too well. The more one deals with it, the more precious it becomes and the better it tastes.”
This week we are going to look at the first seven verses which contain the introduction and greeting. But unlike a normal letter Paul’s letter to the Romans begins with some profound truths: about himself, his mission, about Jesus, about the Romans, and about us.
Most of all Paul’s greeting announces the new order of things where we are free from sin, corruption, and death. Join us this Sunday May 20, 2012 at 11:00AM at the Rock Presbyterian Church 6910-B Miramar Rd., San Diego, CA 92121 as we consider how Jesus has brought about “‘the generous overflow of the love of God the Father’ and ‘a state of wholeness with God with no deficiency.’”

Afraid of Truth

More often than not, Lord, we are afraid of truth. It threatens the identities we have created for ourselves and the ways we are comfortable perceiving others. Give us ears to hear your truth as blessing and mouths to celebrate your truth as gift. Amen.

May 13 Sermon Text: Is. 49:14-17

This morning we're going to talk about two things. The first is a little statement by me to make myself available to the congregation, having been hired as your pastor on a part-time basis. After that we will look at some scripture that celebrates a mother’s love as a way of observing Mother's Day. Hopefully everyone will be able to somehow show your appreciation for the way your mom has supported you over the years.

I first want to mention a few things about being offered the privilege of being asked to serve you over the next year. I want to tell you that my goals for this congregation over the next year are going to be driven by three principles: Preach the Word with Integrity, Love the People, and Respect the Community.

The first principle: Preach the Word with Integrity, means that it is my intention to try to accurately represent God's love for the people by preaching the Word of God in a way that is true to our best understanding of the plain meaning of scripture. This means that all of my preaching will focus on accurately presenting the meaning of each passage in the light of the overall message of salvation that is represented in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In the Greek the word for "Gospel" is euangelion, which means "good news." It is the same word we get our word evangelism from, and evangelism means preaching the “good news.” But this kind of news is more than just good news; it was the kind of news that might announce a great victory or triumph. The Christian Gospel really is the proclamation of the amazing victory of God over the power of death, sin, and corruption for all of his children. That message is at the heart of scripture from Genesis to Revelation. God has communicated that word to us through scripture; my hope is to be able to convey the astonishing love of God for you that the Bible represents. I am asking you now that you hold me to that. If I ever seem to stray from the gospel, if we reach a point where the "good news" doesn't really seem very good, hold me accountable. There are a number of guiding passages in scripture; I think the one that is most appropriate at this time is in 2 Corinthians:

⁵ For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” ^t made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

⁷ But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (2 Cor. 4:5-7 NIV)

The second principle, Love the People, means that I see my primary role in this family of faith as reflecting God's love to my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is really the role of all Christ followers, to devote our lives to doing his work. But as the scripture tells us that some people are set aside to be leaders, and I have accepted that role, conscious of my own shortcomings, it is my hope that I can fulfill that role. In the gospel according to John at the scene of the Last Supper Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. Then he explained the meaning to them

¹³ “You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and rightly so, for that is what I am. ¹⁴ Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. ¹⁵ I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. ¹⁶ Very truly I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. ¹⁷ Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them. (John 13:13-17)

I am instructed by Jesus’ example and instruction that the mark of true leadership is self-sacrificing service. I hope that you noticed that my telephone number and my email address are located in the bulletin and I invite you to contact me with any concerns at really any time. I can't always answer my phone and I can't always respond to email right away but I promise I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can. At least for the next few weeks, starting today, I will also be available after we share lunch together to meet with you one on one. I can also make appointments for other times. I want to be open and approachable so that I can respond to your needs.

The third principle, Respect the Community, means that I see my role here as continuing the aspects of this ministry that you all are comfortable with. I have been invited into your family. I am not planning on coming in as a crusader and making wholesale changes. I have some ideas for making some changes that I think might be beneficial to the congregation, particularly in the area of Sunday School ministry, but overall my intention is to proceed slowly and make sure that I respect the values and forms that have been developed before I got here. Above all I want us all to remember that this is your congregation and I am your servant.

So moving on from that we want to turn our attention to the text for today. Today is Mother’s Day in which we honor our mothers for the love and sacrifices they have given us over the years that have so richly blessed our lives. A mother’s love is proverbial. A mother’s love is at the same time fierce and tender. We have all heard stories of mothers who fiercely protect their children, of mothers who gladly forfeit their own well-being and sometimes even their own lives for the love of their children. This seems to be a universal condition. It crosses the boundaries of culture, ethnicity, and religion. It even carries across species. Anyone knows that the most ferocious animal is the mother protecting her young.

When we think about God we often refer to God in male terms; we think about God as “father” and God’s relationship with his people as a kind of a masculine relationship of the father to his sons. And there is no doubt that there is a lot of this kind of language in both the Old and New Testaments.

But the reality is that God’s love is beyond our understanding. God does refer to himself as Father in many places in the Bible, but he also refers to himself many times in terms of maternal care, and sometimes as both father and mother in the same verse! Today’s reading is one where God compares his care for his people to a love that is even greater than that of a mother for her child.

But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me,

the Lord has forgotten me.”

¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast

and have no compassion on the child she has borne?

Though she may forget,

I will not forget you!

¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;

your walls are ever before me.

¹⁷ Your children hasten back,

and those who laid you waste depart from you. (Isaiah 49:14-17 NIV)

Let’s think about this verse in context. First, it is prophecy. Two weeks ago we heard from the prophet Haggai and we mentioned a couple of things about prophecy then. When we think of a prophet, we often think of someone who can predict the future. And there is that sense of prophecy, the section of Isaiah we are looking at today, as we will see, has a future fulfillment. But as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the main role of the prophet is to speak God’s word to the people. So even though sometimes prophecies have a future fulfillment, they always have an immediate relevancy. They speak directly to the situation of the people being addressed by the prophet.

If you were here two weeks ago you recall that the prophet Haggai was speaking to the people who had returned from exile in Babylon and urging them to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Today we are looking at a prophecy spoken to the people before they went into exile in Babylon. One of the major themes of Old Testament prophecy is warning Israel to return to the life they agreed to live when they entered into covenant with Yahweh.

Whenever we consider scripture it is important to keep in mind the larger biblical story. That story starts with the Creation in chapter one of Genesis and concludes with the triumphant reign of Christ in the last chapter of Revelation. In between we find the story of man’s fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, the accompanying corruption of the Creation, and God’s plan for restoring both man and the Creation to full relationship with him in Jesus Christ. The story of that restoration begins with God’s promise to Abraham that he would make him the father of a great nation. Abraham became the father of Israel, literally his grandson Jacob, who fathered the twelve sons who would come to be what we know as the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

After the death of Israel his offspring were enslaved in Egypt, and many years later God delivered the Israelites from slavery in Egypt by his servant Moses. The Israelites entered the desert between Egypt and Canaan which is where modern day Israel and Palestine are, essentially in the Sinai desert, and there the people of Israel entered into a covenant with Yahweh to follow His law and be a holy (“set apart”) people whose purpose was to draw all people to God, thus fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham. This would be accomplished by Israel living by the Mosaic Law, contained in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

A covenant is a deal, and the deal included both blessings and curses. The blessings of keeping God’s law were that God would give them the land of Canaan and bless them with prosperity. The curses included withholding prosperity and ultimately the loss of the land and exile. The historical books of the Old Testament tell the story of the Israelites in the Promised Land and from them we learn that the Israelites could never keep the covenant. Not only did they not keep the commandments of the Mosaic Law, at times they forgot they even had them.

This was the reason God sent prophets. The prophets were sent to warn the people to live by the law or face the consequences. For many years the Israelites suffered hardship in the land, and finally God executed the final judgment against Israel when the Assyrians burned Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and dragged the people into exile.

Isaiah the prophet lived probably about a hundred years before the destruction of Jerusalem, and the prophecy we read today is part of a warning of what will happen to the Israelites in their future if they do not change their ways and return to the covenant. The verses we read sound an ominous note: “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me” (Is. 49:14) which reflects the despair of a people in exile.

But if we look at this passage in the context of the larger prophecy of the 49^th Chapter of Isaiah we see that the message contained here is one of comfort. In fact the verses immediately preceding the one we read speak not of the doom of Jerusalem and the people of Israel but of the bright future God promises for the restored Israel, the people he will deliver from slavery and exile:

⁸ This is what the Lord says:

“In the time of my favor I will answer you,

and in the day of salvation I will help you;

I will keep you and will make you

to be a covenant for the people,

to restore the land

and to reassign its desolate inheritances,

⁹ to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’

and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’

“They will feed beside the roads

and find pasture on every barren hill.

¹⁰ They will neither hunger nor thirst,

nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them.

He who has compassion on them will guide them

and lead them beside springs of water.

¹¹ I will turn all my mountains into roads,

and my highways will be raised up.

¹² See, they will come from afar—

some from the north, some from the west,

some from the region of Aswan.”

¹³ Shout for joy, you heavens;

rejoice, you earth;

burst into song, you mountains!

For the Lord comforts his people

and will have compassion on his afflicted ones. (Is. 49:8-13 NIV)

Isn’t this a lovely image? If you believed the prophecy here applied to you, wouldn’t you be filled with joy that this was to be your destiny? But the next verses, the ones we read at the beginning, the ones that start with “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me,” (Is. 49:14) speak to a people who do not see the miracle of their deliverance but the hardship of their predicament. When the people are released from exile and allowed to return to the Promised Land, they will find the land occupied by foreigners, their old lands taken by others, the city of Jerusalem destroyed, the walls ruined, the Temple a pile of rubble. For them, this promise by God of peace and prosperity seems too good to be true. But it isn’t.

That is the central message of our passage today. God assures the people of his passionate love for them. “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! (Is. 49:15 NIV) Remember we talked earlier about the universal understanding of the nature of a mother’s love. It is both fierce and tender. If any of you are mothers you know what kind of love I’m talking about, or even if you are a parent. It is the kind of love that never gives up. It is the kind of love that ferociously protects its children. It is the kind of love that sacrifices itself for the well-being of the child. And here God is promising through the prophet Isaiah that his love is even greater than that! Even though a mother may forget, he says, he will not forget his children.

Now let’s go one step further and wonder how God intends to accomplish this miracle of restoration. The key lies in the verses preceding the promise of restoration:

⁵ And now the Lord says—

he who formed me in the womb to be his servant

to bring Jacob back to him

and gather Israel to himself,

for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord

and my God has been my strength—

⁶ he says:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant

to restore the tribes of Jacob

and bring back those of Israel I have kept.

I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,

that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

⁷ This is what the Lord says—

the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—

to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,

to the servant of rulers:

“Kings will see you and stand up,

princes will see and bow down,

because of the Lord, who is faithful,

the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” (Is 49:5-7)

Isaiah Chapter 49 is one of the sections of prophecy that is referred to by Biblical scholars as the “Servant Songs.” They are prophecies that directly predict the coming of a Messiah. In Old Testament times there was some disagreement among Jewish scholars about what was exactly being referred to here. Was it the restored nation of Israel? Was it a single individual, a powerful leader like Moses or David? It was these verses that led the people of Israel in Jesus’ time to expect the Messiah as a political redeemer; someone who would overthrow the Romans and bring back David’s kingdom. But these prophecies plainly predict that the Messiah, the “Redeemer and Holy One of Israel,” will be one who suffers and is despised, and who ultimately redeems Israel by his own sacrifice. Thus in New Testament times the followers of Jesus will see that the fulfillment of this prophecy is in Jesus Christ and his atoning sacrifice on the cross. And even more than that, that God’s promise to Israel would extend to everyone, and be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Taken all together, the verses in Isaiah 49 assure the people of Israel of God’s great love for them. It tells them that even though they will have to suffer the consequences of their rebellion and disobedience, of their sin, that nevertheless God will in the end deliver them to a destiny of amazing brilliance. The fulfillment of God’s promise will be much greater than prosperity in a particular geographical location; it will be a newly restored Creation in which all of the corruption and sorrow caused by man’s sin is wiped away and forgotten and God lives in the midst of his people. This promise will extend beyond the Old Testament nation of Israel to include all of God’s children. And it will all be accomplished by the atoning sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the euangelion, the “gospel,” the astonishing “good news” of God’s great victory over death and the corrupting influence of sin.

And so we come back to this love that we started with. The love of a mother for her child, and we see it perfectly represented in the love of God for his children, which includes you and me. We see a love so great that it willingly endures hardship and ultimately sacrifices itself for the well-being of the child. When we see Jesus suffering on the cross to atone for our sins, we see the reflection of the great love a mother has for her child.

And so on this Mother’s Day I think it is appropriate to reflect with gratitude on the kind of love that never gives up on its children no matter how badly we screw up or even take that love for granted. God himself, particularly in the person of Jesus Christ, is the representation of the greatest self-sacrificing love there is. And that love is reflected in the love of a mother for her child.

I know that there can be difficult relationships and that none of us is able to live up to our calling to love each other in a perfect way. But if you’re fortunate enough to still have a mother you can be in touch with today, reflect on the things we have talked about here and think about how you might show gratitude for the love that is reflected in motherhood. And every one of us would do well to remember our calling as Christians to live out that self-sacrificing love that is displayed on the cross. May our lives be marked by demonstrations of that love toward all of our fellows. Amen.

“Can a Woman Forget Her Child?” Is. 49:14-17

      14 But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me,
         the Lord has forgotten me.”

      15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
         and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
         Though she may forget,
         I will not forget you!
      16 See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
         your walls are ever before me.
      17 Your children hasten back,
         and those who laid you waste depart from you. (Is 49:14–17 NIV)

This Sunday we will be celebrating Mother’s Day. The great love of a mother for her child is a universal experience. The love of a mother is both fierce and tender. It is a reflection of God’s love for the Creation. But when we think about God and his love, we most often think about God as “Father” and his relationship to his children as one of a father to his sons.

While the Bible does contain these kinds of images in both the Old and the New Testaments, God’s love is beyond human understanding. In many places in scripture God reveals his love to be like that of a mother, and in some places he even describes himself as both like father and mother in the same verse!

This week we are going to be looking at one of the verses where God compares his love to that of a mother for her child, and how he tells us through the Prophet Isaiah that his love is even greater. Join us this Sunday May 13, 2012 at 11:00AM at the Rock Presbyterian Church 6910-B Miramar Rd., San Diego, CA 92121 and we will consider how God’s great love for us is revealed in the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Genuine Transformation

“Only love is capable of genuine transformation. Willpower is inadequate. Even spiritual effort is not up to the task.” – David G. Benner