01. Taking on the Mind of Christ (2003) - Dallas Willard

Welcome to the Dallas Ward Podcast, the source of remastered, original, long-form teaching from Dallas Willard himself. I'm Dallas's daughter, Annier Host, Rebecca Willard Heatley. Today we're bringing you a presentation Dallas gave on January 1, 2003 at the closing session of an annual Intervarsity Christian Fellowship Conference held in Atlanta, Georgia. This talk titled "Following Christ, Taking on the Mind of Christ" offers a compelling vision of discipleship to Jesus, including why learning to see the world as Jesus sees it is so important. This talk provides powerful insights for people in all walks of life who want to live more deeply in the reality of the Trinitarian community, which Dallas says is the absolute foundation of all reality from which everything else hangs. So get ready to be inspired and encouraged. Now here's "Following Christ, Taking on the Mind of Christ." Well thank you very much and we made it to the end and it's amazing how much energy there's been flowing. I hope it doesn't run out now. And if you feel yourself waning a bit, perhaps you can reach over and pinch the next person and say, "God loves you and so do I." And that'll keep you awake. Very glad to have the opportunity to speak to you and though the energy level and the power of the Spirit has been moving so and the wonderful stories and presentations, my head is still buzzing with them. Now we come to the point where we have to draw it together and think about where we go from here. And I would like to use a passage from Philippians 2 to give you some language to look forward with. It's a very familiar passage. I think all of you will know it. You may not even need to turn to it. It starts out as if we're going to be teaching about our behavior. And immediately we find ourselves in the midst of the Trinity. Listen to these words. Paul says in Philippians 2, "Make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent in one purpose, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself." Now that is a thought that goes to the very heart of our spiritual life, to regard others as more important than themselves. And in order to make this palpable, Jesus Paul turns to Jesus. And we have here now the great Knosus passage, which I like to think of as the Pauline parallel to the prologue to the gospel of John. Now what we're going to be looking at here is a mind and a person that is capable of doing that. Let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look on the personal interest of yourself, but also for the interest of others. And now here comes the great statement, "Have this mind or attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. To all though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. And because we're limited in time and I want to dwell on a particular point, I'm not going to read the rest of this passage. I want to stop you there." And ask you to think about that statement. He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped. And in order to make the connection you have to go back now and read that with humility of mind in verse 3, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. I just hold that. Would you hold that in your mind? What would we like to see coming out of this conference? I'm going to speak personally. I'm not going to think about adversity. I'm going to think about me. And I'm going to think about you. And I ask you to think about you. And let's think very personally about what we would like to see come out of this. What kind of quality of life can we take from this place? What can we live in? What kind of character? What kind of presence of God can go with us moment by moment and day by day as we go on from here? We can sketch some of it pretty well. Just think of living in an abundant flow of the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, kindness, meekness, self-control. Now you might think of a follower of Christ would be like that. Wouldn't you? Very often I think it's people who art followers of Christ who especially think followers of Christ ought to be like that. And sometimes they hold a higher and perhaps more appropriate standard for us than we ourselves do. Is that your vision of the quality of life that might come from the wonderful teachings and presentations and fellowship and the amazing worship that we've had? In order for that to happen we have to have the mind of Christ, the mind of Christ. You might think also that as you went forward in the fruit of the Spirit letting it be a natural and pervasive and almost routine reality in your life. For whatever circumstances you might be in you might think also that you would see a life moving through your activities. That you would sense a giftedness coming so that the things you did would have consequences far beyond anything that could be attributed to you. See, that's the presence of the life of the Spirit. Is you act and God acts. And the consequences of what you do are unaccountable in terms of anything that we could call natural abilities or natural attainments or what for short the New Testament refers to as flesh. So that your administrations, your special activities would be a wonder to you and you would find yourself surprised at what God is doing through you. Yet you're not thrown off because after all you are solidified in love and joy and peace and the fruit of the Spirit possesses you and gives you that character. And so you can easily bear the weight of the power of God that is coming through your life. And for who knows perhaps even there would be occasions in which you're confronted with some really grave situation and you would find working in you a power to overcome it as the kingdom of God manifested itself. And your faith moving forward would see the walls fall and come down and the extreme circumstances in which you exist would simply be another manifestation of the presence of God in your life. Maybe it's passing your language test or getting your dissertation project to prove. Sometimes those are huge things and sometimes you have opposition to them. But you would see the presence of God or perhaps not in the way you would like to see it come out but something better. See we think a lot about the difficulty of the Christian way. I want to say to you that the Christian way is easy. It's the other way. that's hard. And if you think the sayings of Jesus are hard, you ought to hear the devil sayings. They really are hard. See, we don't understand the richness of the world that we live in as we trust Jesus Christ and step into His kingdom. And so we think we read the Bible stories and we think about Daniel in the lions, Dan. Well, maybe we should ask the lions about it. All right, whose Dan was that? I'm sure they said, "Shw, I'm glad that guy's out of here." Man. Now, you see, that's what I'm saying, following Christ moves in that area. It is a path on which we move into the transformation of character. And as our character is transformed, God is able to trust us with His power. And that is the story of the people of Christ throughout the ages. Are there hard times? Is their death? Is their blood? Yes. But when you read Hebrews 11 and see both sides of that story, the ones who from the human point of you may have won and the ones who may have lost, you don't find in that chapter any statement that it's too bad if you get saw in the sun. If you're eaten by the lion instead of having a nice lunch on your own, see. We step into a world of richness, of goodness that we can appropriate by faith. If we have the mind in us, that is in Christ Jesus. And the lot of confusion about this now, because the truth to tell you cannot assume that someone called a Christian is going to be a follower of Christ, can you? That's where we live today. And the faith that might grow and be nourished by someone who really does follow Christ is absent. And we find ourselves struggling and in depression and in doubt falling into sin. Because we don't see the richness that comes with the mind of Christ. You know, before we leave, I hope you will take a moment and just write down what you believe following Christ is. We haven't really dwelt on that in a narrow sense. We've heard wonderful things about life in Christ and the power of God and the goodness of God. But now as we leave, we want to think about what it is to follow Christ. You see, the teaching that has allowed the following of Christ to become something of an anomaly among Christians is the teaching according to what really matters, according to which what really matters is simply accepting the sacrifice of Christ on your behalf to pay for your sins. And what we are up against when we come to talk about following Christ is really some very difficult points in soteriology, use a big word. Some very difficult points in understanding salvation. What is salvation? We've heard that touched upon in a number of ways. But let me suggest to you that the New Testament concept of salvation is really being caught up in the life that Christ is now living on earth. I'll say it again. That salvation or being saved is a matter of being caught up in the life that Christ is now living on earth. The only direct statement about what eternal life is that I know of in the scriptures is John 173 and this is eternal life, that they might know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ to me have sent. Now you will know that knowing in the Bible almost never means what we would call head knowledge. Knowing refers to interactive relation. And that's what it is to follow Christ. It is to live in an interactive relationship with Christ. That's a life. He that has the sun, half life. Paul's word in Romans 8 is, "Those who are led by the Spirit of God, they are the children of God." Now is forgiveness essential to that? Yes. But we have allowed the doctrine of justification to replace the understanding of regeneration so that the gospel that is normally preached is one that stops with justification and goes no further. But the assumption of following Jesus is always a special kind of life that has come to us in interactive relationship with God. Jesus came to mediate our relationship to God and he takes care of whatever is required in the way of forgiveness. He is the mediator between God and man. I think we need to be very careful when we try to analyze too closely exactly what happened at the cross in terms of payment if you wish. And to be very careful with that, we may work ourselves into a position where we have a God who really never forgives but is only paid off. When I go up to the gates, as we sometimes say, I don't expect them to check the computer to see if I'm paid up. I expect them to say, "Here comes another friend of Jesus, another person who has trusted Jesus Christ and has made him the Lord of his life and has lived in interactive relationship with him." Now I'm going slow here because I think this is a primary barrier for many of the things that we've talked about this week. The kind of righteousness that moves out into the world and brings to bear the justice of God with mercy and compassion and power, that kind of life is something that is only lived in organic unity with Jesus Christ. And when we talk of following Jesus, that's what we're talking about. You'll remember the simple words in Matthew 9/9, "Here's Levi sitting in his tax office and Jesus comes by." I'm sure that this was not the first time that Levi had seen Jesus and Jesus comes by and he says to him very simply, "Follow me and Matthew arose and followed him." Now what did Matthew do? Here's what it meant to follow Jesus for Matthew. It meant to be with him learning to be like him. One who follows Jesus is not perfect, but there is moving in them something that will eventually bring them into complete harmony with God in all aspects of their being. I don't anticipate that will be for most people until they pass the veil of death, but I also don't anticipate that they're going to sit where they are until they die. They're going to be on the move because they are with him learning to be like him. To trust Jesus Christ means to put your confidence in Him for everything that concerns you. It means, among other things, that we would believe that everything that He says is right and good, and that all of the things which from a merely fleshly or worldly point of view look so hard are in fact easy once you have moved into that life. That's what it means to follow Jesus Christ. It is being with Him learning to be like him. And as we live in His presence, we undergo a transformation, and we experience redemption in every dimension of our being. Our minds are transformed. And our minds, our thoughts, and our feelings. And that's basically what we're talking about when we talk about the mind of Christ. And the outcome of following Christ in this way is a progressive transformation of all the dimensions of the Self in such a way that our life is increasingly an easy and routine expression of the words, deeds, and character of Jesus. And this is spiritual transformation in the Christian sense. Our thoughts are no longer the same. Our feelings are no longer the same. Our will is no longer set in the same. Our body is oriented differently. Our social relationships have an entirely different character. The very depths of our soul are healed so that we become a whole person and every aspect of the Self integrates under God and the worship and love of Jesus Christ. We're in a period where we must think of being a Christian in a different way. A reconception is required. What we grew into over a period of time, possibly around a century, was what we might call "side-line Christianity." The picture here is you have a life to live, and then there's your religion. Standing somewhere in the shadows, you'll find Jesus, as an old song used to say. Religion is important, but mainly because of what happens to you later. Of course, it has public importance, and it will also make you a nicer person, and that's important. But what's really important is what happens to you later. Now, the shift is complete. When you begin to look at the Scriptures and you take the parts that we're all very familiar with, everything from the Ten Commandments, the Twenty Thirds' song, the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, all of those passages that we so often just look at and don't know what to do, except maybe feel guilty. And when we shift away from thinking of religion as something on the side and take the New Testament view, then all of those verses begin to come alive. A Goppe love begins to move into our lives, and it begins to make the differences that we see in the life of a person who is coming closer and closer to the character and power of Jesus Christ as they move along with Him through their lives. Listen to these words, in Him we live and move and have our being. Now that was spoken by Paul for everyone. But of course the person who knows Christ, for that person living in Him, having our being in Him, moving with Him is a conscious plan. Live out an experience in such a way that as 1 Corinthians 10, 13 says, "Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." And when we've made the shift, then our reliance on Jesus Christ becomes the whole of our lives. We learn that being with Him learning to be like Him. And when we look back now at the verse in Philippians, we get a glimpse into the nature of the Trinity. What is this mind that was in Christ Jesus? How are you going to characterize it? Look at these words again. Here's what he said. It says that though he was in the form of God, verse 6, you have to stop a moment, you don't think what that's like. I mean there's nowhere to go above that, is there? He's in the form of God. That's as good as it can get. But now, he did not regard a quality with God as a thing to be held onto. And I want to stop and just ask you to think for a moment of what must have been before his mind when he did that, when he turned loose and stepped out. See, this great Kenosis passage, as we call it, or outpouring, pouring, emptying himself, is a glimpse into the heart of the Trinity. The members of the Trinity serve one another in love. They each regard the other as better than themselves. Now try this one. Okay, I know I'm saying some things you may not have heard before. Let's just try that on. That the members of the Trinity each regard other as better than themselves. Well, that's what he was talking about when he brought this object up, wasn't it? It was about Christians, followers of Christ, regarding others as better than themselves, putting others first without thought. Well, that's the lesson about the Trinity. They each regard others better than themselves. What they have between them is beyond trust. As we can understand trust, they don't think of themselves enough to make trust an issue. When you try to understand the issues surrounding difficult theological topics like subordination or not subordination in the Trinity, you can reen all the blood out of your brain and never get anywhere. If you stay at the level of abstract categories, and the reason for that is what you see in the Trinity is the act of will and character. There's no subordination in the Trinity, not because the members of the Trinity are not different. They are different. The reason there is no subordination in the Trinity is because the members of the Trinity will not put up with it. It is a will thing. It is a love thing. It is an understanding sort of thing. It's dangerous to talk this way, but you may want to spend some time thinking about how the members of the Trinity would get together and have a party for one another. You see, the Trinity sets the model of what community is supposed to be like. Now, once you understand that, then you can see why Christ did not regard equality with God as something you needed to hold onto, that He needed to hold onto. It was because of His vision of God. It was the richness of understanding that made it clear there was no point in holding on. There was no reason to even think about it. Think of a fellowship of human beings that is taking on that character. And you begin to see the significance of having the mind of Christ and then think of that fellowship reaching out into a world that is full of danger and evil and moving out with that same kind of love. Jesus saw He knew He had knowledge of God in such a way that He could just turn loose. Let me ask you this question. What one word would come to mind as you try to think about Jesus' posture and light? Well, I want to suggest that the best word to describe Jesus is relaxed. He was relaxed. Now, you read the gospels and see what that does for you. You see, many times when we read the gospels, we see Jesus saying these things, you think, "Is He nuts? Doesn't He understand what's going on here?" You'll remember the story of the age chapter of Matthew. I'm sure where he's asleep in the ship. You remember that story? And these guys are just climbing the walls trying to do something to keep the ship afloat and he's asleep. Would you call that relaxed? Now, why was he relaxed? Because he knew the richness of his life in God. He knew that. And these fellows finally went to him and shook him and woke him up and said, "Don't you care that we perish?" Well, he didn't have that in mind. It wasn't just that they were going to get through the store. It was that even if they didn't get through the store, if they went down with the ship, that was okay too. You see, Jesus had the cavalier attitude that He had towards death because He knew the richness of God's world. That this mind be in you. That was in Christ Jesus. That's the secret of following Jesus Christ. And so when we understand that, we see the richness of the life in God, the trinitarian community, that is the absolute foundation of all reality from which everything else hangs. This is the basis for the transformation of individuals who are keeping company with Jesus Christ. I wish I had time tonight to talk at greater length about some of these points, but we must understand that the morbid, agonized picture of Jesus Christ that is often presented is not a true picture of who He was. And He was not a miserable person. He suffered, but He suffered with joy. And He had the vision of God and of His place in God. And of what God was going to be doing with everything in His creation that made Him perfectly comfortable with whatever He came. And so when He says things like, "Well, don't be anxious about tomorrow." And we say, "Well, I've got plenty to be anxious about." Then He comes to teach us, "No, we don't. We can turn that loose. We can relax." Just from a human point of view, you'll do a lot better if you relax anyway. What the thing is that when we relax in the life of God and learn how to carry that through us through with us day by day, then we have the mind of Christ. Now that has to be given to us. It is a natural and let me just step aside here a moment and say that one reason why it is so important, what you are doing as Christians is because the whole academic world is set against the mind of Christ. It's set against the mind of Christ. There is no richness of life. There is no security. The academic world does not see a marvelous trinitarian community at the basis of reality. They don't have that to trust. And one of the great things about the varsity witness through the years has been the willingness to stand there and say, "There is an alternative view." And wherever you may be, whether you're writing your dissertation or your chairman of your department or whatever your place may be, a staff member for IV, it is incredibly important for us to make sure that we present an alternative view and that we do it in love and openness, but with vigor and in the power of the Spirit that goes far beyond anything we can do, as I said a moment ago. See, that's what we learn as we follow Christ. As we learn to stand in the truth of that view. When Jesus was in the garden, many people present this as a time when He was cringing in the garden out of fear. I just invite you to rethink that story. There may be another way of reading it. Hebrews 5.7 has this to say, "In the days of His flesh He offered up both prayers and supplication with loud crying and tears to one able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His obedience." Apparently, on that perception, Jesus' prayer was answered in the garden. It will follow that, if that's true, He was not praying to avoid the cross. In fact, His ambition was to reach the cross. The garden, I suggest to you, was Satan's last chance to stop Him and kill Him in a corner and not allow Him to triumphantly ascend on the cross to the exaltation in human history that He had carefully planned with His Father. He was not cringing. He was fighting, and He made it to the cross, and He endured the cross despising the shame and His sat down at the right hand of God. See, that goes with the Kenosis passage. He laid aside His glory. He took human form, the form of a servant, and became obedient under the death of the cross. But you see, that was a glorious reality. That was not a defeat because it was lived in the presence and power of God. Jesus was not avoiding the cross. He was joyfully embracing it. We want to follow Him in that same way. You see, we want to lay aside every weight and the sin. That's so easy that He besets us. We lay it aside why? Because of the richness of our fellowship with Jesus Christ. There is nothing that takes the place of that. There's nothing that can possibly compete with it. Sometimes we think of the spiritual world as a kind of consolation prize. It's not a consolation prize that you get when you can no longer hold onto this visible world. It's a pure, faded thing, a bleached out and decimated version of the real thing, which is the visible world. It has a richness and a vibrancy of quality, event, and person which the visible world can never approximate. But we only come to know this in our fellowship with Christ. It is not an accident that Paul spoke of dying as gain because he knew that he would enter into the richness of that world. Paul speaks of the glory that is to be revealed in us, and of how creation itself is anxiously longing for the time when the children of God will stand for it. Be revealed in their true nature. He speaks of how there is being produced for us, an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison to what we go through in this life. Now that is present now. That glory is around us now. And living in the presence of Christ is a process of learning how to know that it is there now. The book of Revelation strives with only partial success to put that eternal realm of God, the natural home of the soul before our minds with its talk of all the things most precious on earthly life, gold and pearls and those kinds of things are just pointers. This was the reality that was before the mind of Christ. Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus is a call to walk with Christ until that becomes what is constantly before our minds. Now when that happens, we see the transformation of our emotional life. So one of the things I'm hoping that you might go from this place with is a sense that you can live without fear. But you can live without fear, without fear of sickness, of poverty, of failure in your academic life or your career or for that matter in family relationships. that you can entirely step free of fear. I see fear is anticipation of evil, and we know that evil is real. But we know in the world that comes before us, and in which we live, as we take on the mind of Christ in His presence, it's a perfectly safe place for us to be. I pause over that because I think it's hard for us to take that in. Wherever you are, it's a perfectly safe place for you to be. That's why Jesus said to the guys in the boat, "Why were you afraid?" And no doubt that was one of those many times when they looked at one another and said, "You see, they're operating in two different sceneries, if you wish." And Jesus is leading them on to the point where they will increasingly learn that there's nothing to fear. Whether it's sickness or poverty or failure of career or what is going to happen by terrorist or any of those things. Now sometimes people, I believe, think when I say that, that I'm being a little hard-hearted, that I ought to be more sympathetic with people who are suffering, but actually I think that I am being sympathetic because I understand what it is like to deal with the world outside of the mind of Christ, and that the best thing I can do for anyone is to tell them that they can live in that world where no matter what happens, God will make it good. And that's what lies back of Romans 828. It's not for everybody, but for those who love God and are called into His purposes, all things work together for good. And fear. Now when fear goes out, defensiveness goes out. Anger goes out. This is another point in which I commonly get in trouble is suggesting that it is a good thing to get rid of anger. Well Paul agreed with me at least on that. He didn't know he was agreeing with me. But you know, he says, "Lay aside, anger." And in this world, by there so much to that, is not as it should be. It's easy to get angry. But what you find when you live in the abundance of Christ is that you can stand more firmly for what is right without anger than you can with it. Now you have to learn how to do that. But that's what we learn as we follow Christ is how to be as solid as a rock, as clear of mine, as circumspect concerning what is going on, as it is possible for any human being to be and yet without anger. Someone says, "Yes, God gets angry. Jesus got angry." I know I frankly tell you that I can trust them with things I wouldn't trust myself. And while Jesus apparently did get angry, I'm not up to that. I need to be solid. I need to be clear. But I can do that much better if I'm not angry. And everything I can do with anger, I can do better without it. But how can you get there unless you are living in the richness of the mind of Christ? It is the richness of the mind of Christ that sets us free from the emotional bondages that keep the pot of evil boiling in our world and in many of our Christian homes or churches. Anger and contempt, which goes with fear, can be eliminated by learning to have the mind of Jesus Christ. Well, let me just try to pull this together by saying that any process of spiritual transformation involves three things. And I'll give you a little acronym and hope you can remember it and then put it to work. The first thing that it involves is vision, and that's what I've been talking to you about this evening is vision. The mind of Christ is primarily a vision of God that made it possible for him to turn loose, to trust, and to let love flow out from that to everyone around him. Vision. Vision is crucial. And this is where we fall most short. Thank God for the vision that has been given in the sessions of this conference. And I think it's going to help us a lot just to be able to remember that and the wonderful way that it was presented. I'm still turning those stories that Mark and others have told over in my mind, and I expect to let them have a rich harvest because they help us have a vision of the goodness of God. It's a vision. A vision in which God is truly over everything. But it also requires intention. And if you will notice Paul puts this in the imperative, let this mind be in you. That is in Christ Jesus. And we have to intend it. The vision will not be imposed upon us. And we may be a little bit rebellious about that because you see what it really means is we have to give up the project of being God. We have to lay that down. We have to take Jesus as our God and our guide in letting walk with us all the way. And sometimes we're a little hesitant. I often ask people if there was a pill you could take and you'd never get angry again. Or you'd never be unkind again. Or you'd never be impatient again. Would you take it? If there was an operation where if you could go to the hospital and have your impatience taken out permanently, what'd you do it? And I understand, I feel the hesitancy in that. Because I was raised in the world where everything goes in the opposite direction. You have to look out for yourself. You have to take care of yourself. Well, you can really get impatient if that's your project. And it kind of feels good to get impatient, a little anger in it, a little bit of pride, a little bit of contempt possibly. And that positions me in the human world. And it makes my glands move and my blood pump and I feel I'm alive. Do I want to just be patient? Intention is required. You know, many folks have never been given an opportunity to decide to follow Jesus Christ. They have never been called to the decision of being a disciple. And it has never been explained to them what that means. So you need vision and you need intention because you will not drift into the mind of Christ. And then finally the part that we're apt to spend most time on and rather unproductively, if our vision and our intention is not there, are the means for making it happen. And we spend a lot of time on means when the real problem lies in our vision and our intention. Let me just say very simply, you can take on the mind of Christ by very simple means if you want to. It works. And here's how you're doing. You've filled your mind with his teachings. That may mean that you actually memorize substantial portions of the scripture. And if you don't like, if you like Paul better, that's okay. You can get it there. There's no difference between Jesus and Paul on these things. That's one of those myths that get started around as it Paul was doing something different than Jesus was. And as far as his teachings have concerned, if you know what Paul teaches, you won't be surprised at anything in the service. on the mount. It's all right there. Just take some of these great passages like Romans 8 or Colossians 3 or the Servant on the Mount or John 14, 15, 16, Memorize. You can do it. Take them in, get them where you constantly turn them over in your mind and then put them into practice, put them into action. There's those two things that's all required, all that's required in the way of means. If you have the vision of life in God that comes with the mind of Christ and you intend to have it, if you'll do those two things, simply take the teaching of Christ into your mind, make it a part of your mental furniture, keep it turning there and put it into action. And you will know the reality and goodness of the kingdom of God that is here now with you. And see, that's really what God has in mind for each of us. God has in mind for each of us that we would become the kind of person whom he can give the power to do what we want. I'll say that again because there's a pronoun in there that may have you worried. God's intention for you and for me is that I would become, you would become the kind of person that he can empower to do what you want. Well, you say what about what he wants? Yes, yes, he wants that, but he wants you to want it. And the project of our life here is essentially to get our waters straight. That's what life is about. Life is about training for raining with Christ in the kingdom of God, which is here now. See, that's what being with Jesus is about, with training, to reign with him for eternity. But we're living now, and we're learning that power now, and as we go through our days with him, all of the challenges, all the threats, all the problems, all the aches and pains are there for us to simply place them before him. And that's the simple secret of taking the mind of Christ, taking His Word, put it in action. Because you know the richness of the kingdom that has been given to you. Now let me tell you everything you see in the scriptures is true. All of these teachings that we go, it's true, it works. It's accessible to everyone. And there isn't anything on earth to compare with it. And that's what we learn when we take on the mind of Christ. As we go from this place, this evening, I hope that that will be your decision, that whatever it takes and however it comes, you're going to live and walk in the Word and person of Christ in such a way, that this idea of following Jesus becomes clear to everyone around you, but most of all to yourself, as the way of life. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. You see, that's how that comes. The God of hope fills you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. We also have an 18 month discipleship community called the School of Kingdom Living that you might be interested in. New cohorts begin every October. Find us on your favorite social media channels for thought provoking quotes throughout the week and visit our Facebook group, Dallas Willard is my homeboy, to discuss the things you're learning on your journey with Jesus. This podcast is brought to you by Dallas Willard Ministries and the family of Dallas Willard. Our producer is Tim Williams. Until next time, remember who you are. You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God's great universe. [BLANK_AUDIO]