The Divine Conspiracy // how to transform your mind in a week

Read this book, that’s how to transform your mind in a week. No book, save the Bible, has done more to shape me than Divine Conspiracy.

Over the course of 400 pages, Dallas Willard takes our presuppositions of what the “Christian walk” should look like and turns them on their head. He basically presents the argument that we have traded the Law for more laws. That is, Christians passed over the Old Testament law because Jesus had fulfilled it and we accepted His teaching from the Sermon on the Mount, or as Willard calls it, the Discourse on the Hill. But, instead of viewing it as a heart issue, we took what Jesus said and made it into our new law. For example, Jesus says, “if a man says go with me, one mile, then go the next mile with him also.” Willard proposes that we have taken this to be a law of righteousness, “I will be righteous in God’s eyes if I always go the extra mile.” But Jesus is not pressing laws for righteousness, that is what the Pharisees were doing. Jesus is dealing with the heart of the Kingdom Servant. The actions of the Kingdom Servant are committed out of the overflow of a changed heart. So, when Jesus says, “He who calls his brother a fool is in danger of the fires of hell,” the Kingdom servant chooses not to participate in name calling not because there is a new law that Jesus has set down, rather, a heart change takes place and the servant recognizes what Jesus has, that all men are special creations in the Creators eyes and it is not our place to devalue that person. Not about laws, but heart issues.

When I hear and read what Jesus said in that sermon now, I am moved to change my own heart. For the past week I have been wrestling with my own heart and asking if my actions are the actions of a Kingdom Servant. Here’s a short list. 1) The guy that is “in my way” on our drive back to Auburn: Why am I frustrated with him? Because I am so arrogant as to suppose that I should have first rights. My frustration is unwarranted and does not value that person. Sounds crazy. Read the book. 2) My small debate on a blog on Saturday: my comments were mostly unhelpful and did not value the community as a whole, it would have been better for me not to comment. Sounds crazy, read the book. 3) Kristen made a comment last night that frustrated me and I made a much bigger deal out of it than I should have: Arrogant enough to think that my feelings were the most important and therefore caused a rift between us that never should have occurred, thus ruining a perfect time for us to discuss how God is growing us and what steps we are taking to continue that.

Those are three, but there are countless more examples I could give. What I’m telling you is that I hope this book continues to live in me for a long time. I know over the next few weeks and months I am going to be continually reevaluating how I live based on much of what I have read in this book. To say that it should be required reading for all Believers would be to go against the very teaching that Willard is proposing, but I would say that it should be the most strongly suggested book for anyone who wants to take discipleship under Jesus seriously.

That’s my review. I don’t usually say “find a way to go spend the money and the time to read this book or that book,” but I think you should go spend the money and the time to read Divine Conspiracy.