{"id":938,"date":"2019-06-22T17:34:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-22T23:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=938"},"modified":"2019-06-21T15:43:38","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T21:43:38","slug":"do-we-want-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=938","title":{"rendered":"Do we want transformation?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align:center\" class=\"has-small-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">[To follow <strong><em>The Ewellogy<\/em><\/strong>, please click on <strong><em>Leave a Comment<\/em><\/strong> above, fill in your name and email, and check the box: <strong><em>Notify me of new posts by email<\/em><\/strong>. If your comment is, &#8220;Notify me,&#8221; it won&#8217;t post publicly. If you don&#8217;t start to receive the blog by email right away, please write to me at bob@ewell.com, and I will see that you get on the list.] <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I frequently teach (and write about!) how to have daily time with God, and although the <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1aZ7669yISjPerZoXtIyXbP_mspdQcsp7\/view?usp=sharing\">method<\/a> is easy, it&#8217;s always been a puzzle why more believers don&#8217;t take up the habit. I&#8217;ve tried various means to motivate people but without widespread success. I even came up with a list of reasons that people might not develop this most important discipline:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>We don&#8217;t start small enough: God would rather we spend 15 minutes than NOT spend one hour. As we get into the habit, the time might grow.<\/li><li>We don&#8217;t see far enough: growth and love for the Word occur over time. (Please see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Mark+4%3A26-28&amp;version=ESV\">Mark 4.26 &#8211; 28<\/a>)<\/li><li>We don&#8217;t want to: we won&#8217;t <em>want <\/em>to do something until we&#8217;ve first done it when we <em>didn&#8217;t <\/em>want to! (Please see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Hebrews+12%3A11&amp;version=NIV\">Hebrews 12.11<\/a>)<\/li><li>We just don&#8217;t!<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now I&#8217;ve learned a possible rationale for the last one, and it&#8217;s disturbing. It&#8217;s from my new favorite book <a href=\"https:\/\/smile.amazon.com\/Biggest-Lie-History-Christianity-Happiness-ebook\/dp\/B07FCS6TTQ\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=XTP6236Q8Q4F&amp;keywords=the+biggest+lie+in+the+history+of+christianity+matthew+kelly&amp;qid=1561151888&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=The+biggest+lie%2Caps%2C196&amp;sr=8-1\">The Biggest Lie in the History of Christianity<\/a> by Matthew Kelly (where the <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=922\">Holy Moments<\/a> concept I wrote about recently came from). After discussing the typical reasons why people might not read their Bibles, he writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>But in a deeply subconscious way, the main explanation for why we don\u2019t read the Bible more is diabolically profound: <strong>We know and believe that the Word of God has the power to transform our lives.<\/strong> That\u2019s right. You didn\u2019t misread. It\u2019s not that we don\u2019t believe; it\u2019s that we do believe. We know the Word of God has the power to transform our lives, and the uncomfortable, unspoken, and often-avoided truth is that we don\u2019t want our lives transformed<\/em>. (Chapter 14)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And neither I nor Matthew Kelly knows a cure for that other than repentance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind&#8230; (Romans 12.2)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,  are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.  For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3.18, ESV)<br><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><br><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I frequently teach (and write about!) how to have daily time with God, and although the method is easy, it&#8217;s always been a puzzle why more believers don&#8217;t take up the habit. I&#8217;ve tried various means to motivate people but without widespread success. I even came up with a list of reasons that people might &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/?p=938\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do we want transformation?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8X9bo-f8","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":941,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drbobewell.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}