Category: Level: Intermediate

dark faith

The Best Way To Develop Deep Faith

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“We walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7, ESV). This means we must be willing to accept some blindness. We cannot insist on being able to have spiritual sight about everything. For most of us God has already proven himself in various ways. We do not need to wait for something more to learn to walk in dark faith. We can’t keep going back to convince ourselves of God’s truths. There is a point at which we just start walking into the darkness of faith without any other support. This experience usually keeps cycling on and off throughout our Christian life. We step out in the darkness and eventually the light dawns and we reach a plateau. Later, we walk into another patch of darkness. Gradually, God trains us to connect with him on a different and deeper Spiritual channel. Times of dryness and darkness are our best Continue Reading →

faith

Learning Faith In Spite Of The Challenges

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It is common for new believers to begin with a measure of faith and then develop a moderate level of love for God. After this the believer usually begins to encounter challenges that stretch their faith. Then the questions is whether or not the believer will push ahead with deeper faith. It is not so difficult to develop a strong love for God, even if it is not yet mature. But developing deep faith is a huge challenge that many never overcome. In other words, it is easier to develop love than faith. We see this in human relationships. A mother may truly love her son with all her heart but if he is leading a destructive life she may not even trust him to stay overnight in her house. Trust is something that is earned over time as a person proves themself. We will not risk our well-being on Continue Reading →

fivefold way stages of growth

Our Fivefold Way of Growth – Part 2

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Last week we looked at the first two processes of the fivefold way of spiritual growth. First was God’s grace coming to us. Second was purification. The third way is infilling. As he takes the bad stuff out of us he also puts his good stuff inside us. And we are to actively engage in this process: Ephesians 4 teaches us to “to put off your old self” (v. 22, NIV) and “to put on the new self” (v. 24, NIV). As God brings us into communion with himself he wants to pour himself into us and expand his Spirit inside us.  Think of yourself as a dry riverbed downstream from a mighty river. God is a big wave of beautiful water coming down the river towards the mouth of your riverbed. You can either open up to his river with surrender in faith or you can dam it up. Continue Reading →

fivefold way stages of growth

Our Fivefold Way of Growth – Part 1

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A fascinating dimension of Christformation is the various phases of growth that believers go through. We know that we go through phases because Scripture warns us against being immature. In 1 Corinthians 3 the Apostle Paul makes a disappointing evaluation of the Corinthian Christians when he says: “I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ” (v. 3 NIV). We do not want to remain in the infancy phase. Thus, it is important to have an understanding of the phases of growth God wants to take us through. Understanding progressions of our growth helps us to know where we are and where we are going. It also helps us to be okay with where we are and not dislike ourselves for not being more mature. Understanding phases also teaches us what thoughts and feelings are normal for Continue Reading →

puzzled

How Can We Be Like Jesus If We Are Not Divine?

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When we talk about becoming like Jesus someone might object that Jesus was divine and we are not. How are we supposed to become like Jesus? How can we have all the love and faith and humility he had? I used to wonder this myself. But after carefully looking at Scripture I realized that Jesus did not depend on his divinity to live like he did. A key Scripture is Philippians 2:6-7 which explains that Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (ESV). Thus, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, chose to let go of his divine powers and be born as a human. He lived as a human and served his Father as a human – Continue Reading →