Category: Key Growth Posts

reflection, meditaiton

Meditation Is Our Foundational Practice

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Scripture instructs God’s people to meditate on God’s words. When the Israelites were preparing to cross the Jordan river into the promised land God told Joshua: “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8, NIV). Hundreds of years later this was still practiced; Psalms 1:1-2 promises: “Blessed is the one . . . whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night” (NIV), (also see Ps. 119:25, 23, 78). Meditation is the single most important spiritual discipline in Christian history. It is the central practice followed by the great Christians of the past and is essential to Christformation. Solid meditation includes prayer and walking in the Spirit so it is comprehensive. Below Continue Reading →

union marriage

Our Blissful Union With God In Christ

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Our union with God began when we believed, and God wants this union or oneness to grow throughout our lives. We are “engaged” now and God will complete our full union at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The idea that we are united in this mortal life is based on the many passages in the New Testament about our present oneness with God or Christ which includes the passages about God or Christ being in us and us being in God or Christ, as well as the Old Testament passages referring to God’s people as his bride. We will quote only two of them. In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul tells the Corinthians that “I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ” (ESV) and in 1 Corinthians 6:17 he states that “he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him” Continue Reading →

love others

What Is The Chief Sign Of Maturity?

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Echoing Jesus, Paul stated that the commandments “are summed up in this one commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself”” (Rom. 13:9, NLT). John stated: “And this is His commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.” (1 John 3:23, NLT). James instructs us to “obey the royal law as found in the Scriptures: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”” (James 2:8, NLT). Is God pleased if we have warm affection for him but do not know how to communicate love to others? What are we accomplishing? Remember that God’s grand mission is to bring his community of love to maturity and eventual perfection. This means that we never stop pursuing better ways to love others. And we never stop pursuing purification, knowing that our corruption obscures God’s love and glory from clearly shining through us to others. In Continue Reading →

possible faith

Try The Possible Faith Exercise

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God is always challenging us to deeper faith. One way to expand our faith is by a fairly simple exercise I call the “possible faith” exercise. It is simple but surprisingly effective. In addition to binding us closer to God in Christ, this exercise should help reduce anxiety and other distresses. Possible Faith Exercise Recall something in your life that is distressing or causing anxiety or fear. If you can’t think of anything then you can just focus on the general state of your soul, or consider unbelief, pride, finances, relationships, loneliness, occupation, disappointments, personal tragedy, health, perfectionism, bad attitudes, bad habits, etc. Recall any promises from Scripture that might relate to your situation. These can be general or specific passages. Imagine having unqualified faith in God, especially full faith in his Scripture. Ask yourself “How would I feel, how would I think and what would I do if I Continue Reading →

maturity

Do You Passionately Pursue Maturity?

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Jesus and his Apostles clearly taught us that we should pursue maturity. But why? In an earlier post we listed five reasons for pursuing holiness, which is essentially the same as maturity. In this post, we want to focus mostly on the motivation of becoming what God made us to be. If your teenage child stopped growing intellectually and emotionally would you not consider this a cause for great concern and make an exhaustive search for an answer to the problem? Wouldn’t you realize that unless your child resumes their development that they will not become what they should become? Wouldn’t you make every effort to help them achieve adulthood along with its benefits? Likewise, if we allow ourselves to become complacent about our growth just because we have reached “teenage” maturity then are we not choosing to fall far short of what we are meant to be? Are we Continue Reading →