8) Transformed by Word of God, do the Will of God

Romans 12:2 Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.

True love is never ungrateful, but strives to please those in whom it finds its pleasure; and hence comes that loving conformity, which makes us such as those we love. The most devout and most wise King Solomon, became idolatrous and foolish when he loved women who were foolish and idolatrous, and served as many idols as his wives had. (Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales, Book VIII, Chapter 1)

Whosoever truly takes pleasure in God desires faithfully to please God, and in order to please him, desires to conform himself to him. (Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales, Book VIII, Chapter 1)

Colossians 1: 9 – 11 we do not cease praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding  to live in a manner worthy of the Lord, so as to be fully pleasing, in every good work bearing fruit and growing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with every power, in accord with his glorious might, for all endurance and patience..

In fine the pleasure which we take in a thing has a certain communicative power which produces in the lover’s heart the qualities of the thing which pleases. And hence it is that holy complacency transforms us into God whom we love, and by how much greater the complacency, by so much the transformation is more perfect: thus the saints that loved ardently were speedily and perfectly transformed, love transporting and translating the manners and disposition of the one heart into the other. (Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales, Book VIII, Chapter 1)

So by often delighting in God we become conformed to God, and our will is transformed into that of the Divine Majesty, by the complacency which it takes therein. (Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales, Book VIII, Chapter 1)

We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love. In this sense, as I think, the great Apostle said that the law was not made for the just: for in truth the just man is not just but insomuch as he has love, and if he have love there is no need to press him by the rigour of the law, love being the most pressing teacher and solicitor, to urge the heart which it possesses to obey the will and the intention of the beloved. Love is a magistrate who exercises his authority without noise, without pursuivants or sergeants, by that mutual complacency, by which, as we find pleasure in God, so also we desire to please him. Love is the abridgment of all theology; it made the ignorance of a Paul, an Antony, an Hilarion, a Simeon, a Francis, most holily learned, without books, masters or art. In virtue of this love, the spouse may say with assurance. My beloved is wholly mine, by the complacency wherewith he pleases and feeds me; and I, I am wholly his, by the benevolence wherewith I please and feed him again.we cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.  (Treatise on the Love of God, St. Francis de Sales, Book VIII, Chapter 1)

Whom do you love the most? Reflect and pray.

Philippians 1:9 And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ.