Category: Interior Life

motives

Are You Free From Harmful Motives?

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Motivation is a monumental issue in our spiritual lives. We will be constantly tempted to embrace motives that damage our spiritual growth. Many of them are disguised. The supreme motive for everything in our life should be our desire for the community of love with God and his followers. It may sound simple to consistently choose this motivation, but it is not. In fact, we will be learning to choose this for our whole lives. When we are young in Christformation we learn to recognize obvious impure motives such as sensual gratification, materialism, retaliation and preoccupation with our image. But after you overcome these there is a whole other set of hidden motives waiting to torpedo your spiritual life. If you are willing to pursue self-knowledge with God (so that you can “put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (Col. 3:5, NIV)) then you will discover deeply Continue Reading →

Garden of Eden

Focusing On The Restoration Of Eden

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The story of our destiny begins in the book of Genesis. There we learn that God originally placed humans in a garden in a land named Eden. In the Garden of Eden God told Adam and Eve “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals” (Gen. 1:28 NLT). He also “put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15, ESV). Then God gave Adam and Eve to each other so Adam (and obviously Eve) would not be alone (Gen. 2:18); Adam was to “hold fast” to Eve and they would be “one flesh” (2:24) and she was to be his “helper” (2:20). Thus, God gave Adam and Eve eight callings (we count reigning over the animals as one calling.) Adam and Eve were to fulfill these Continue Reading →

surrender

Raising The White Flag Of Surrender

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What life could be more blessed than one that fully submits to God’s will? The Christian life is a movement toward a complete penetration and flow of God’s will throughout the core of our being. We are like a log in the fire of God who burns away the impurities until his will permeates every part of us and we are glowing with the fire and light of God. Jesus used the violent image of the Roman executioner’s cross when he described our submission to God’s will: “Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:38-39, NIV). There must be death to our ways and like Jesus’ death, this death is painful and sometimes dark and lonely. Johannes Tauler (c.1300-1361), taught that one should pray: Continue Reading →

self-examination

The Blessings Of Self-Examination

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Self-examination and self-knowledge have been considered essential to Christformation throughout church history. In the profound first chapter of his highly influential Institutes of the Christian Religion Calvin said: “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.”[1] One way to make progress against sin is to practice daily self-examination, which is sometimes referred to as examen. You may not need to set aside a time at the end of the day for examen if your occupation allows you to assess your situation before God throughout the day. However, many people find this difficult and creating a set time at the end of the day works better for them. Following is a guide to daily self-examination: Guide to Daily Self-Examination At the end of the day (or during the day if Continue Reading →

sadness sorrow guilt

The Blessing Of Guilt And Sorrow

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As unbelievers we may have tried to rationalize away our actions as not being wrong because if we admitted our wrongs then it would mean that our actions were not justified and so we would have to view ourselves as guilty. And in our minds guilt naturally required devaluation of someone as well as some sentence of judgment. This is why the great majority of unbelievers in the public eye present justifications for their actions. They do not want to admit that their actions are corrupt; they want to believe that they are justified and they want others to view them as justified. But we are free from all this. We are not afraid of honest guilt because guilt does not lead to devaluation, rejection or a sentence of judgment. Through faith in Christ, God justified us (accepts us) and adopted us as his children. The justification issue in our Continue Reading →