Category: Key Growth Posts

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 →

heart love

An Exercise For Believing God’s Love For Us

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The foundation idea of our faith is that God loves us and wants to bless us. This conviction is something that expands throughout our lifetime, but it can also fade. This exercise helps us to keep ourselves abiding in God’s love and to highlight any areas where we might doubt his love. Read through this once as a prayer by replacing references to God with “You”. Then start over and read one line at a time without replacing references to God, as a declaration and acceptance of God’s love. After each line take at least 20 seconds for agreeing with and absorbing it. Choose to believe and be guided by it. This exercise should help you determine how much your heart truly believes in God’s love for you. If you notice resistance or lack of agreement as you read through this, then take some time to reflect on why that Continue Reading →

triple power supply

Our Threefold Living Power Supply

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It is extremely helpful to get in the habit of daily checking ourselves to see if we are living from the new self, walking in the Spirit and focusing on Christ. I think this is one of the fundamental practices of a believer and if we pursue this divine threefold living power supply we will discover a transformation. We do not succeed in Christformation by focusing on our effort, but rather by focusing on our threefold power supply. We need to commit to pursuing Christformation, but we actually pursue it by abiding in our threefold power supply. We can also mention the Father’s parenting, though he appears to choose to provide his power through his Spirit and his Son. First, remember to live from your new self, which is created in the image of God. Your new self wants healthy loving relationships and especially a union of love with God. Continue Reading →