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Chastity to train the eyes and the imagination—the eyes of the heart—to see God's sons and daughters as our brothers and sisters.

Secrecy about doing good and being good in order to mortify pride, vivify humility, and relieve ourselves of the need to be hot stuff at Bible study. Willard helpfully adds that Christian speakers should pray for other speakers on the program, asking that these others will speak better and attract more praise than oneself. (I know that my gracious friend Dallas does this. I also know from speaking on a program with him that the prayer doesn't seem to work.)

Study of God's Word in order, as Calvin put it, "to dig up the treasures buried there" and live off them. God has put the Bible in our hands as a kind of owners' manual for tuning and running a healthy life in the kingdom. It's always wise to read the manual.

Worship and, within it, celebration—feasting, dancing, singing at God's glad invitation—in order to mortify despair and to draw us into joyful repose in the household of God. Because we all become like the one we worship, blessed are those whose God is the Lord!

Deliberate consciousness that the first heaven is the air around us, that God is alive in it, and that, bidden or unbidden, God is awfully present there. All prayer, including short prayer ("Help, Lord!"), is inescapably and gloriously local.

Confession of our sins to each other as well as to God. This mortification of the old self is, of course, open to terrible abuse. Who but God can bear to know not only what I said, but also what I almost said? Still, if you confess to a friend that you lied to him, says Willard, your confession will "marvelously enhance" your ability to get it straight the next time.

It's important to see that this program of renewal has nothing to do with "works righteousness" as the Reformers used that term. In the wonderful world of Willard's theology of Christian living, justification is still entirely by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. But sanctification is another story. Mortification of the old self and vivification of the new one take not only God's gift, but also our effort. No theologian should try to get us off the hook here. Patience, for example, is not only a fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5; it's also our calling in Colossians 3. And nobody ever became patient without the daily exercise of self-control, especially in the left lane behind a poky driver.

The disciplined life will cost us. But, as Willard notes, the undisciplined life will cost us far more, now and forever.

Cornelius Plantinga Jr. is president of Calvin Theological Seminary.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Also posted today is:

A Divine Conspirator | Dallas Willard is on a quiet quest to subvert nominal Christianity.

More about Dallas Willard's latest book The Great Omission and his other writings is available from his website.

More articles by or about Willard's books include:

The Making of the Christian | Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard on the difference between discipleship and spiritual formation. (Sept. 16, 2005)

Not a Hallmark Bible | Richard Foster and Dallas Willard on the newly published Renovaré Spiritual Formation Bible. (Sept. 16, 2005)

In His Steps | How to Become an Apprentice of Jesus. A review of The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard. (1999)

Articles by Willard include:

Gray Matter and the Soul | What is the difference between the brain and the soul? By Dallas Willard (Nov. 15, 2002)

Taking God's Keys | The keys of the kingdom also unlock the joys of your calling. By Dallas Willard (Leadership, October 31, 2001)

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September 2006, Vol. 50, No. 9