Category: Level: Advanced

In Philippians Paul ties our spiritual growth in with essential spiritual truths. Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of new creation. This week we look at closer union with Jesus’ cross and resurrection. In Philippians 2:1 Paul instructs the Philippians: “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ” then please be one with each other. Paul considers Christians to be united with Christ. Then in Phil. 3:10-11 Paul talks about his spiritual growth, his desire to know Christ: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” (NIV) Notice that Paul is expanding on his union with Christ. He wants to experience more union with Christ. Specifically, he wants to experience Jesus’ “resurrection from the dead” for himself, which has not happened for him yet. Continue Reading →

Most Christians go through one or more periods in their life when God seems absent. We use different terms for this such as dryness, dark night, desolation, desert time, or wilderness time. John of the Cross (1542-1591) coined the term dark night of the soul to refer to these times in his book Dark Night of the Soul. Even great Christians in history we admire go through such times. For example, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, and Oswald Chambers. Bruce Demarest mentions the last three in his book Seasons of the Soul, which I highly recommend, beginning on p. 84. He also discusses desolation in general which is very helpful. (There is a link to this book on Amazon on our Resources page.)  Walking through these times is very difficult and it is important to understand some basic principles so that it isn’t more difficult than it should be. More importantly, there are Continue Reading →

At one point in the movie The Hobbit Gandalf, Bilbo and the dwarves are all trapped in a tree slowly tipping over a cliff while hordes of orcs are attacking. The situation looks hopeless but then, amid all the chaos, Gandalf spots a butterfly that has landed on the tree. He calls the butterfly to himself and whispers to it and it flies off. A few minutes later the situation has worsened and dwarves are about to start falling off the tree to their death. Just as the first dwarf falls off the tree a giant eagle swoops down and rescues the falling dwarf. The butterfly has summoned a convocation of eagles which comes and ravages the orcs and rescues Gandalf, Bilbo and all the dwarves. We too can experience the butterflies of God’s power. This story is a good illustration of how the Holy Spirit often comes to us. In the Continue Reading →

The most astonishing feature of the next age: we will be “married” to the Lamb (Rev. 19:6-9; 21:2, 9-27; 22:17). Our greatest blessing will be joining to God in Christ. “In the story of redemption and the history of heaven the supreme event for which the ages are waiting is the marriage of the Lamb. The Bible is one long love story and redemption a divine romance of the love of God.” (1) We will be the wife of the Lamb. The bride of the Lamb comes down out of heaven as the New Jerusalem (the city of the saints of God) “having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel” (21:11). Our wedding day will finally arrive and having been clothed in staggering beauty our loving Bridegroom will take us into his heart and ravish us in loving embrace forever. Being Christformed, deep will call to Continue Reading →

What do people experience in dark nights? Typically, one has been feeling some degree of consolation and faithfully pursuing Christformation for several years (usually at least five) before their Spiritual life goes dry and they enter a dark night. Some will feel more pain than others because there is a continuum of severity of dark nights. In this dark night, they cannot sense the presence of God or even have confident faith that he is present with them. Their past pleasurable experiences with God are gone and they cannot get them back. Of course, this is very puzzling. They will ask themselves: What went wrong? Have I been too lax in my pursuit of God? What is wrong with me? What doctrinal truth am I not believing? They will try to recapture past experiences with God and they may even be able to recapture a portion of them but then Continue Reading →