Spiritual formation in Christian preaching emphasizes the gradual shaping of character and soul through divine grace and human nurture, reflecting transformation into Christlikeness (Romans 12:2). Illustrations often use natural growth, education, and influence metaphors—such as trees changing color or raw diamonds being cut—to depict how early habits, associations, and teaching impact the believer's spiritual maturity and identity.
People are influenced by those they associate with, like a tree-frog changes color to its surroundings.
The tree-frog acquires the color of whatever it adheres to for a short time. If it be found on the oak, it is a brown color; on the sycamore or cedar it is of a whitish-brown color; but, when found on the growing corn, it is sure to be green. So a man is sure to be influenced by those with whom he associates.
Associating with bad companions can cause both to adopt sinful habits.
A story is told of two parrots who lived near to each other. The one was accustomed to sing hymns, while the other was addicted to swearing. The owner of the latter obtained permission for it to associate with the former in the hope that its bad habit would be corrected; but the opposite result followed, for both learned to swear alike.
People tend to take on the character of those they associate with, like a tree-frog changes color.
It is said to be a property of the tree-frog, that it acquires the color of whatever it adheres to for a short time. Thus, when found on growing corn, it is commonly of a dark green: if found on the white-oak, it has the color peculiar to the tree. Just so it is with men: they generally resemble those with whom they associate.
— Bib. Treasury
Ancient education focused on physical and intellectual training but neglected spiritual formation.
The ancient Spartans educated their youth in a stern and severe drill, beginning with the earliest infancy, and tending to make the body elastic, vigorous, and firm to the last degree. For the mind and heart, it cared nothing. A young man who could neither read nor write might yet be the flower of Spartan youth if he could hurl the discus farther than his fellows, or wield the javelin with more vigor and grace; or if he could endure, without a groan, the savage discipline of the lash, inflicted, not in punishment, but as a test of honor, and with all the sanctions of religion, before the altars of the gods. Nor was the Athenian culture, with all its boasted superiority of refinement, intrinsically better. It was an intellectual discipline, to be sure, and, as such, in many respects superior to our own; but it took little heed to the spiritual nature, and left the culture of the heart to accidental agencies to a great extent. The Persians, perhaps more than any other nation of antiquity, took pains to implant moral principles in the minds of children; yet even their morality was of the earth earthy. It sought the advantages of virtue rather than its beauty. Dr. McClintock.
Early life experiences shape character foundations that later instruction cannot change.
Education begins with life. The touch first ministers to it afterwards the sight, and then the hearing. This is our guide in seeking to assist the progress of nature. We must begin with present and tangible things; we must then give absent things a visible form by picture; and the picture which meets the eye may lead to the description which finds its way to the mind only by the ear. Before we are aware, the foundations of the character are laid; and no subsequent instruction can remove or alter them. Linnaeus was the son of a poor Swedish clergyman. His father had a little flower-garden, in which he cultivated all the flowers which his means or his taste could select. Into this flower-garden he introduced his little son from his infancy; and this little garden undoubtedly created that taste in the child which afterwards made him the first botanist and naturalist of his age, if not of his race.
— Dr. J. Todd
Mothers should nurture children's hearts with lasting spiritual values, not empty forms.
Don't cram your children with unreal forms, like blown bladders, which occupy all the room, and collapse on the first rude rub on real life. In pity to your children, put something into them that will last and wear. Don't expend all your energies in tying ornaments on them to attract the gaze of the curious in the street; get into them, if you can, some of that ornament which is, in the sight of God, of great price. Mothers, if your hearts have been quickened by the Spirit, take your fashions from the word of God. Occupy yourselves mainly in moulding the heart and life of your children after the pattern which Jesus showed and taught. This will give you most enjoyment at the time, and most honor afterwards. Arnot.
True education reveals and develops hidden potential, like sculpting an angel from stone.
It is related of Michael Angelo, that, while walking with some friends through an obscure street in the city of Florence, he discovered a fine block of marble lying neglected in a yard, and half buried in dirt and rubbish. Regardless of his holiday attire, he at once fell to work upon it, clearing away its filth, and striving to lift it from the slime and mire in which it lay. His companions asked him, in astonishment, what he was doing, and what he wanted with that worthless piece of rock. "Oh! there's an angel in the stone," was the answer; "and I must get it out." He had it removed to his studio, and with patient toil, with mallet and chisel, he let the angel out. What to others was but a rude, unsightly mass of stone, to his educated eye was the buried glory of art; and he discovered at a glance what might be made of it. A mason would have put it into a stone wall; a cartman would have used it for filling in, or to grade the streets: but he transformed it into a creation of genius, and gave it a value for ages to come.
A sanctified imagination helps us understand and connect with heavenly realities.
We should make our fancy serviceable to us in spiritual things. And, seeing God has condescended to represent heavenly things to us under earthly terms, we should follow God's dealing herein. A sanctified fancy will make every creature a ladder to heaven. Sibbes.
Early habits deeply shape identity and are difficult to overcome even after conversion.
Miss Martineau tells of a white infant who was captured by the Indians, and grew up among them, trained to their habits, and to think that to take the greatest number of scalps was the highest glory. While yet a youth, he was rescued, was educated, and subsequently became a minister. During the Revolutionary War, he held a pastorate near the scene of conflict. He went into the field of battle in his ministerial dress, but returned changed. A gentleman saw blood on his shirt, and said, "You are wounded." The clergyman put up his hands as if to conceal the wound. The gentleman, thinking it ought to be looked to, pulled open his shirt, and from beneath it took out a bloody scalp! "I could not help it," said the victim of early habits. He ran to the Indians, and never again appeared among the whites.
True excellence comes from studying nature and truth, not inferior examples.
IMITATION, Mistake of Titian, whom Sir Joshua Reynolds valued so highly, that he used to say he would be content to ruin himself to possess one genuine production of his pencil, devoted no less than eighty years of his patriarchal term of life to the prosecution of the art. He was but ten years of age when he became a scholar of Bellini, of whose style he was soon able to present imitations, which excited universal astonishment. Happening afterwards to see the works of Bellini's pupil, Giorgione, he found that he had been excelling in the imitation of a very inferior model; and for some time made it a rule to copy after the elegant but gaudy style of Giorgione. At length, abandoning the trammels of example altogether, he gave himself up to the study of Nature alone, and thus arrived at that pitch of perfection which has procured him so enviable an immortality. Percy.
True immortality comes from impressing the soul's character, not outward works.
Raphael did well, and Phidias did well: but it is not painter or sculptor who is making himself most nobly immortal; it is he who is making true impressions upon the mind of man,—frescoes for eternity, that will not shine out till the light of heaven reveals them; sculptures, not wrought in outward things, but in the inward nature and character of the soul. Beecher.
Unrefined minds are like uncut diamonds, valuable but needing shaping to shine.
On a voyage homeward from India, a child was found playing in the cabin with what appeared to be pebbles. On being asked where she got them, she replied, "From father's little box." A closer examination proved that the supposed pebbles were uncut diamonds of great value. Diamonds in the rough do not make a very attractive appearance: they do not sparkle; and yet they have great value. These uncut diamonds are lying all around us, waiting for the mental lapidary, in whose crown they may shine.
Religion in the soul is fragile and must be renewed daily by God's grace.
Religion in the soul of man is like some precious thing in a vessel of ill-seasoned timber. Not only does the rough wear of this rude world sore batter it; but the burning sun of secularity, the glow of daily business, is enough to fill it full of flaws and fissures: and it is only by putting it to steep overnight in the Pool of Siloah, that the chinks will close, and the cracked and leaky firkin be rendered fit for another morning's use. Dr. J. Hamilton.
Sunday schools turn children's hearts toward heaven, fulfilling a deep spiritual yearning.
Among the old Romans, there prevailed the touching custom of holding the face of every new-born infant towards the heavens, signifying, by thus presenting its forehead to the stars, that it was to look above the world into celestial glories. It was a vain superstition; but Christianity dispels the fable, and gives us a clear realization of that pagan yearning, in the deep solicitude which all its disciples cherish for the spiritual welfare of the young. The great design of the Sunday-school organization is to turn the faces of the little children towards heaven, and prepare their spirits for immortal glory. Biblical Treasury.
Early learning and spiritual discipline prepare us for future needs and opportunities.
Daniel Webster once told a good story in a speech, and was asked where he got it. "I have had it laid up in my head for fourteen years, and never had a chance to use it till to-day," said he. My little friend wants to know what good it will do to learn the "rule of three," or to commit a verse of the Bible or the Catechism. The answer is this: Some time you will need that very thing. Perhaps it may be twenty years before you can make it fit in just the right place; but it will be just in place some time; and then, if you don't have it, you will be like the hunter who had no ball in his rifle when a bear met him. "Twenty-five years ago, my teacher made me study surveying," said a man who had lately lost his property; "and now I am glad of it. It is just in place. I can get a good situation and high salary." The Bible and Catechism are better than that. They will be in place as long as we live.
Youth is a critical time for spiritual formation and establishing vital habits.
The human soul in youth is not a machine, of which you can polish the cogs with any kelp or brick-dust near at hand, and, having got it into working-order, and good, empty, and oiled serviceableness, start your immortal locomotive at twenty-five years old, or thirty, express for the Strait Gate on the Narrow Road. The whole period of youth is one essentially of formation, edification, instruction. I use the words with their weight in them, in taking of stores, establishment in vital habits, hopes, and faiths. There is not an hour of it but is trembling with destinies; not a moment of which, once passed, the appointed work can ever be done again, or the neglected blow struck on the cold iron. Take your vase of Venice glass out of the furnace, and strew chaff over it in its transparent heat, and recover that to its clearness and envied glory when the north wind has blown upon it; but do not think to strew chaff over the child fresh from God's presence, and to bring heavenly colors back to him, at least in this world. Ruskin.
Early religious education deeply influences a woman’s final spiritual allegiance.
A respectable lady died in 1845, near Madison, Wisconsin. She was a native of Kentucky, and educated a Protestant. All her family were Protestants. For seven years previous to her death she had no intercourse with Roman Catholics. But when death was approaching she sent a hundred miles for a Catholic bishop, that she might be received into communion and die in the Romish Church. And wherefore? Her feelings were the result of early impressions received while attending a Catholic school at Nazanath, Kentucky! Yet how little many parents think of the depth and permanency of the impressions made on their infant offspring by the school-teacher's instructions or their own! Of all impressions those are most enduring which are the earliest.
A healthy imagination enriches life and reveals unseen beauty through spiritual perception.
Pure and noble imaginings become a power for good. A healthy imagination is a well-spring of pure pleasure, and by reading and keeping our eyes open to the world we store our minds with pictures which will in after life bring great satisfaction. George William Curtis says: “One man goes 4,000 miles to see Italy, and does not see it, he is so short-sighted. Another is so far-sighted that he stays in his room, and sees more than Italy.” We should train our observing faculties to see all of the beauty that lies about us, even to those finer tints, which it is said only the artist’s eye discerns--“the light that never was on sea or land.”--JAMES T. WHITE, “Character Lessons.”
God’s inspiration shapes our lives like a sculptor carving a heavenly vision.
The following lines on “Inspiration” were penned by Bishop Doane, of Albany, N. Y.:
Chisel in hand stood a sculptor boy, With his marble block before him; And his face lit up with a smile of joy As an angel dream passed o’er him. He carved that dream on the yielding stone With many a sharp incision; In heaven’s own light the sculptor shone, He had caught that angel vision.
Sculptors of life are we, as we stand, With our lives uncarved before us; Waiting the hour when, at God’s command, Our life dream passes o’er us. Let us carve it then on the yielding stone, With many a sharp incision; Its heavenly beauty shall be our own
— Our lives, that angel vision
Different artists find inspiration through unique, personal methods reflecting God's creation.
* * * * *
The famous operatic composers had different methods of getting inspiration for their immortal compositions. One could not write the score unless he had a cat upon his shoulders. There are in his symphonies suggestions of an orchestra which every one of us born in the country recognizes as the familiar strain of a summer’s night; another could stir his genius best at the billiard-table, and in his refrains is heard the rattling fire of the ivory balls; while a third, by walks in the woods and communing with nature, transferred to the orchestra and chorus the sublime secrets of creation.
— CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
Imaginative literature inspires the soul and cultivates noble religious consciousness and ideals.
Literature is but one of the forms of art through which man’s aspiration, his ideals, are revealed. The soul of man takes the hues of that which environs it. It is literature which inspires; not linguistics, rhetoric, and grammar, valuable as these may be for other purposes. Witness the tributes of Darwin and Mill to the power of imaginative literature; these men mourned the fact that other things deprived them of that great power of culture of the feelings which the love of literature brought. Barrie has said that a young man may be better employed than in going to college; but when there, he is unfortunate if he does not meet some one who sends his life off at a new angle. “One such professor,” says he, “is the most any university may hope for in a single generation.” He says, “When you looked into my mother’s eyes, you knew why it was that God sent her into the world; it was to open the eyes of all who looked to beautiful thoughts, and that is the beginning and end of literature.” After having opened the eyes of people to beautiful thoughts, we must be willing to wait, for moral results do not come immediately.--A. J. GEORGE, “Proceedings of the Religious Education Association.”
Sacred music elevates emotions and reduces social ills by fostering noble feelings.
R. H. Haweis says:
I have known the oratorio of the Messiah draw the lowest dregs of Whitechapel into a church to hear it, and during the performance sobs have broken forth from the silent and attentive throng. Will any one say that for these people to have their feelings for once put through such a noble and long-sustained exercise as that could be otherwise than beneficial? If such performances of both sacred and secular music were more frequent, we should have less drunkenness, less wife-beating, less spending of summer gains, less pauperism in the winter.
Jonathan Edwards’ early spiritual interest shows the value of early godly nurture.
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It is said of Jonathan Edwards that he commenced the study of Latin at six years of age; at eight he was keenly interested in spiritual matters. At ten he wrote, like a philosopher, a quaint and humorous essay on the immortality of the soul, and at twelve years of age wrote an original paper on the habits of the flying-spider.
Spiritual truths can be absorbed subconsciously through constant exposure and teaching.
Coleridge relates in his “Literaria Biographia” that in a Roman Catholic town in Germany a young woman who could neither read nor write was seized with a fever, during which, according to the priests, she was possest by a polyglot devil. For she talked Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, besides uttering sounds which, tho not understood by her hearers, had doubtless, meaning, but belonged to languages unknown to them. “Whole sheets of her ravings were written out,” says Coleridge, “and were found to consist of sentences intelligible in themselves, but having slight connection with each other.” Fortunately, a physician who, being skeptically inclined, was disposed to question the theory of the polyglot spirit, “determined to trace back the girl’s history. After much trouble he discovered that at the age of nine she had been charitably taken by an old Protestant pastor, a great Hebrew scholar, in whose house she lived till his death. On further inquiry, it appeared to have been the old man’s custom for years to walk up and down a passage of his house, into which the kitchen opened, and to read to himself in a loud voice out of his books. The books were ransacked, and among them were found several of the Greek and Latin fathers, together with a collection of rabbinical writings. In these works so many of the passages taken down at the young woman’s bedside were identified that there could be no reasonable doubt as to their source.”--Prof. RICHARD A. PROCTOR, New York _Mail and Express_.
A 16-year-old boy in our community hit his mother in the head with a pipe, used a high-powered rifle to kill the deputy who answered the 911 call, staged a day-and-a-half standoff with a SWAT team, and then ended the ordeal by shooting himself in the head. This happened in the suburbs. He was the son of one of the county’s district attorneys.
My wife and I saw five minutes of an MTV program that documented one college girl’s quest to become a Playboy model. She had already been published and was trying to get another gig with the magazine. After her photo shoot, the editor told her that she needed to lose some weight and tone up a little more. She left the studio muttering something like, “I guess I’ll have to work hard and tone up . . . this is my dream.”
SPIRITUAL FORMATION HAPPENS
These stories illustrate a comment C. S. Lewis made in MERE CHRISTIANITY about spiritual formation:
“Taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices,
all your life long you are slowly turning that central [part of
you] into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either
into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other
creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state
of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and
with itself . . . Each of us at each moment is progressing to the
one state or the other.”
Robert Mulholland, author of Invitation to a Journey, agrees:
“We are being shaped into either the wholeness of the image of
Christ or a horribly destructive caricature of that image —
destructive not only to ourselves but also to others, for we
inflict our brokenness upon them . . . We become either the
agents of God’s healing and liberating grace or carriers of the
sickness of the world . . . Spiritual formation is not an
option!”
Every member of the next generation is being spiritually formed for better or worse. Right now, America’s 73 million-plus 0- to 22-year-olds are either being formed in a God-ward or self-ward direction.
SPRINGS OR SEWERS?
The Bible teaches that there are two kinds of people in the world: those whose innermost beings are becoming springs of living waters that pour love for God and others into their worlds, or those whose lives are becoming sewer drains that suck in whatever comes along, sustaining and spreading the virus of self-centeredness that infects so much of their worlds already. Jesus and Paul both used a word to describe the central part of every person. The Greek word koilia literally refers to “the hidden, innermost recesses of the human body,” but also became a metaphor for one’s “innermost being” or heart.
In John 7:37-39, Jesus paints a portrait of the soul that is being transformed in a God-ward direction. He invites soul-thirsty folks to come to and drink of Him, believing in Him as He is offered in the Gospel. Those who do so are given the promise that “out of his heart [koilia] will come rivers of living water,” referring to the promise of God’s indwelling and overflowing Holy Spirit. According to Jesus, God-ward spiritual formation happens when hearts by faith fill up on the love of God as it is offered in the Gospel and then overflow with love back to God and out to others (Matthew 22:36-40).
Paul, however, uses the same Greek word for “innermost being” to give us a vivid picture of the soul that is forming a self-ward orientation. In Philippians 3:19, he says that “enemies of the cross” are people whose “god is their belly [koilia].” In Romans 16:18, the apostle again describes these sewer souls as persons who “do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites [koilia].” People who do not embrace the message of the cross are being shaped to worship and serve the cravings of their own vacuous hearts. Our souls are either filled to overflowing with the Spirit of God or they become our god. The spiritual formation that is happening to us either results in soul springs that are pouring themselves out for the sake of God and others or sewer souls that attempt to consume God and others for the sake of self.
WHERE DO WE START?
The soul of every young person is being shaped into a vessel that is either honorable or dishonorable to the One who made them in His image (2 Timothy 1:20-21), and the majority of them are headed for trouble. Let this statement of the obvious make you look at every child and teenager with enough compassion to ask, “How is this one being formed?” The rate of self-ward spiritual formation seems to be growing exponentially, while the rate of God-ward spiritual formation seems to trudge along. What will our culture look like 10 or 20 years from now? Ponder the problem enough to have it overwhelm you. Are you going to throw your hands up in resignation, or will you ask God how He would like to use you to stem the tide of self-ward spiritual formation through relationships with younger folks who are in your sphere of influence?
What about your church? Are the teenagers in your church being shaped in a God-ward direction, or is the culture squeezing them into its mold, too? Has your church spent more of its time and energy on managing programs than on making room for the Spirit to shape the souls of students? I have too many sad stories to tell about students who grew up in youth ministries that I directed, but are not continuing to be formed in a God-ward direction today.
In Psalm 78, Asaph tells us that key to God-ward spiritual formation in the present generation is the God-ward spiritual formation of preceding generations. The parents and adult leaders of the current godless generation were themselves “a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God” (verse 8). Psalm 78 is a wake-up call to parents and other adults whose own innermost beings are sewer souls rather than springs of living water. It starts with us.
START BY BEING A NORMAL CHRISTIAN
The late Jack Miller once said that “the normal Christian is one who thirsts for Jesus, drinks of Jesus, overflows with Jesus.” The God-ward spiritual formation of the next generation begins when we as parents and adults begin to thirst for Jesus, drink of Jesus, and overflow with Jesus.
Look again at John 7:37-39. Jesus urges us as parents and church leaders to first consider our heart’s thirst. This requires us to EXAMINE our hearts, seeking to understand what we desire and how we tend to satisfy those desires apart from Christ. With what are you filling the emptiness of your heart these days? Is it Jesus, or something or someone else? Our kids will learn how to recognize their own thirsts and bring them to Jesus as they watch us do the same.
Jesus then invites us to drink of Him. “Come to me,” “drink,” and “believe in Me” all describe a desperate dependence on Jesus as the only source of spiritual satisfaction. Are you EMBRACING Jesus as He is offered to you in the Gospel for the satisfaction of your heart’s deepest desires? Our kids know where we go to satisfy our thirsty souls, and they will acquire our tastes, for better or worse.
Jesus promises that those who are aware of their thirst and drink only from His supply will overflow with His Holy Spirit. Not only will our hearts be sated by the Spirit, they will also become fountains of life to others as our faith EXPRESSES itself through love for God and for the people around us (Galatians 5:6)! Is your life flooding your world with love for God and people? Your kids can tell you.
A few years ago I took some of our church’s middle-schoolers to an inner-city housing project during a spring break service trip. A medical-equipment delivery man told us, “Be careful around here. This apartment complex is full of crack addicts. I get offers every day.” We saw little children, even toddlers, running around unsupervised on grounds that were covered in broken glass, but with no parent or other adult in sight. One little girl held tightly to one of our adult leaders and said, “I wish you could be my mommy.” As I have thought about that experience, I realize that suburban Christian parents like me are equally guilty of abandoning our children to the shaping influences of a corrupt culture.
God holds our generation responsible for whether the next generation’s souls will be springs of the Spirit or sewers of self. The Bible warns us that the streams of their souls are not likely to rise any higher than those of the generations that precede them. The next generation will learn to take their own thirsty hearts to Jesus when they see parents and other adults thirsting for, drinking of, and overflowing with Jesus at home, work, and play.
________
Jimmy Davis is an ordained teaching elder in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. He and his wife, Christine, are currently planting Riverside Church, a family of home churches, in the historic Hardin Valley community of Knox County, Tennessee.
[see also #34895]
Rules and commands support character development until principles are fully grasped.
When building a house it is common for the carpenters to insert timbers under the ground-sills pending the time when the stone foundations can conveniently be placed.
Similarly we may employ expedients in character-building. Children may not be ready as yet to grasp principles of conduct; but meanwhile we give them rules, detail commands, and minute precepts; these serve to “shore up” the life while the principles are being formed.
A person's fundamental character shapes all their actions and spiritual overtones in life.
Every life is dominated by a fundamental note, good or bad. All its overtones will ultimately correspond.
The wires strung from pole to pole are set into oscillation by the wind, somewhat as the strings of a violin are set into vibration by the bow. In skilful hands the violin bow can be made to bring forth from the string one powerful fundamental note and several overtones of higher pitch, but in perfect harmony with the fundamental. But the wind is a very skilful performer, and brings forth at the same time not only the deepest fundamental bass note of the wire, but a great variety of overtones, both harmonious and discordant. In fact, the many wires strung overhead, from pole to pole, constitute splendid Eolian harps.--_Telephony._
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