Here is a rather lengthy quote from R. Thomas Ashbrook's book Mansions of the Heart: Exploring the Seven Stages of Spiritual Growth that I thought was germane to our current study in 2 Peter.
"You and I are being spiritually formed every day. But is it the kind of 'formation' we really want? Our environment works overtime to form us into its image; we're transformed every day, oftentimes, for the worse. You see, everyone is on a spiritual formation journey. We don't live in a neutral world, with church or God as our only spiritual influence. We are bombarded by influences - some good and many bad - constantly seeking to form us into the world's mold. Just turn on the TV and watch it for the worldview being taught, or the values portrayed as normal, or the images of false happiness, meaning, purpose, and so on. This negative spiritual formation is always working on us. Statistics tell us that this negative formation is actually quite successful with many Christians. Unfortunately, we Christians have about the same rates of divorce, addiction, and other problems as the rest of the population" (p. 18).
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