The following excerpts come from a newsletter I received from Dwight Edwards, author of "Revolution Within." His book was essential for shaping my understanding of the good and noble heart several years ago. Here's what Dwight says:
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D.L. Moody was exactly right when he noted, “Some men have just enough religion to be miserable”.
True, vital Christianity was never intended to be a grim resolve to imitate the example of Christ.
Oswald Chambers puts it so well,
“There is no room in the New Testament for sickly piety, but room only for the robust, vigorous, open-air life that Jesus lived – in the world but not of it, the whole life guided and transfigured by God. Beware of the piety that is not stamped by the life of God…Be absolutely and fiercely godly, but never pious.”
I love that thought. Vibrant spirituality goes far beyond mere piety; it specializes in becoming “absolutely and fiercely godly”.
It is not enough to concentrate on “in nothing I shall be ashamed” [avoiding sin] That is only a very preliminary start. The true goal is not labored suppression of the wrong but robust expression of the right. Lewis Sperry Chafer writes,
“True spirituality is a seven-fold manifestation of the Spirit in and through the one whom He fills. It is a divine output of the life, rather than a mere cessation of things which are called "worldly." True spirituality does not consist in what one does not do, it is rather what one does. It is not suppression: it is expression. It is not holding in self: it is living out Christ.”
[End.]
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After reading this, the obvious question is, "How does this happen?"
Answer: The indwelling Spirit ignites and enflames our new, God-given good and noble heart so that our new righteousness radiates outwards into the lives of others.