The Articles Library, Section 9
CULTIVATING CHRISTIAN CHARACTER
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William Law
It really comes down to one thing, says this classic teaching: “If you look into your own heart in utter honesty, you must admit that there is one and only one reason why you are not even now a (fully devoted follower of Christ): You do not wholly want to be.”
Dallas Willard
Like all of Dallas Willard’s work, this is an article to be studied, not just read. Willard explains the general pattern for how we can change and applies it to spiritual transformation, giving us a much-needed road map for how to become more like Jesus.
C.S. Lewis
A “spiritual cancer,” “the complete anti-God state of mind,” and “the chief cause of misery in every nation and in every family since the world began.” These are just of few of the descriptors that C.S. Lewis uses to describe our pride. Here is his penetrating chapter on “The Great Sin” from his classic, Mere Christianity.
John Ortberg
“The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become…You should write that down. You should repeat it regularly. You think you have to be someplace else or accomplish something else to find peace. But it’s right here.” That counsel from Dallas Willard to John Ortberg is just a sampling of the wisdom available in Ortberg’s latest work. Here are the first two chapters of Soul Keeping.
The Pied Piper of Peoria: How American Culture Can Lure You from God and Weaken Your Faith
Michael Zigarelli
Whether you realize it or not, you are constantly being sold a set of ideas by our secular culture about how to live. About what it means to have “the good life.” About God, relationships, parenting, work, money, success, sexuality, what clothes to wear, and about everything else. It’s an indoctrination taking place without your knowledge or consent and it’s time for you to break free.
Oswald Chambers
“We do not consciously disobey God, we simply do not heed Him. God has given us His commands; there they are, but we do not pay any attention to them, not because of willful disobedience but because we do not love and respect Him.”
Tony Dungy
Tony Dungy is best known as the coach who led the Indianapolis Colts to a Super Bowl victory. But that’s almost trivial compared to his current ministry: leading people, especially young people, to a life of significance and success. Here is the Introduction and Chapter One of his second remarkable book, Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance.
Donald Whitney
From his refreshingly practical book, Simplify Your Spiritual Life, Professor Whitney counsels us how to strengthen our prayer life through simplifying it.
David Steindl-Rast
For some of us, saying prayers wholeheartedly may be the crowning achievement after we have learned to make every other activity prayer. If your prayer life is not what it should be, maybe it’s time to try something else.
Richard Steele (contemporary English translation by Randall Caldwell)
You probably haven’t heard of 17th century author Richard Steele, but one of his books, a classic in its day, has been given new life by editor Randall Caldwell. Steele’s teaching on the elusive virtue of “contentment” still rings true today and it may bless you with some timely perspective on a timeless problem.
C.S. Lewis
If you are already familiar with The Screwtape Letters–CS Lewis’s ingenious dialogue between a senior devil, Screwtape, and his apprentice, Wormwood–this excerpt about the peril of thinking we “own” anything is well worth re-reading. And if you’re not familiar with the book, you have an extraordinary opportunity to gain new insight into how Satan may operate in our lives.
Gratitude: Pathway to Permanent Change
Michael Zigarelli
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, it is also the parent of all the others.” So said the ancient philosopher Cicero. Two millennia later, our study of thousands of Christians confirms that gratitude indeed spawns myriad elusive virtues, like joy, inner peace, patience, forgiveness, and self-control.