Category: Spiritual Theology

The theology of spiritual growth & sanctification

Walking through desolation.

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Most Christians will face seasons in our lives when we cannot sense God anymore. We’ll feel like He left us, or maybe doesn’t even exist. This usually happens after we have overcome most of our major external sins and then made considerable progress in loving God and others. But in spite of our progress, we still can’t connect with God. We think back to times when we felt God’s presence or could clearly see His activity in our lives. We remember the pleasure we had with God, especially during worship, or reading scripture, or prayer. But suddenly our spiritual life seems dry or even dark. We don’t feel the enthusiasm for God we had before. This stage of the Christian life has been experienced and written about by many of the great Christian teachers since the earliest centuries. Some have called it “desolation”; in the 16th century John of the Continue Reading →

Purging Deeper Sinfulness

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After turning away from the more obvious sins in our lives, we may begin to think that we are fairly godly. But now we face the real battle against sin. Sinful thoughts and attitudes remained buried deep within our hearts and control us in ways we don’t realize. If we saw all our sin at once, it would overwhelm us and drive some of us mad…which is a warning against over-examining ourselves. Yet we still desire to grow in godliness. We want to share His nature and reflect it to others, and to do that we must continually give Him permission to uncover deeper areas of our lives. Better yet, we should eagerly ask Him to do so. Then our hearts will have an attitude of continual openness to His promptings. We will be more willing to open the door when we begin to hear the faint knocking of His Continue Reading →

Forces That Ruin Fellowship – Lesson From Second Century

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Why did koinonia and dynamic church life fade in Christianity? Many of us sense that church should be more relational and that everyone should be able to develop and exercise their spiritual gifts. Without this church seems more like a spectator experience (or a “busy-ness” experience) than a participation experience. By the end of the 2nd century several forces began to combine to reduce koinonia, or fellowship, in the Christian church. Fellowship became less important in the Church’s spiritual theology (the theology of spiritual growth.) Understanding these forces will help us to avoid the same problems today and recommit ourselves to true koinonia. As you read this list you might ask yourself if there are similar forces today that interfere with koinonia. Here is a list of some of the forces: 1. The Church was focusing on teaching proper doctrine so believers would not be led astray. Christianity was experiencing Continue Reading →

Is Our Highest Calling Worship or Evangelism?

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Subtitle: The Great Commission, the “Great Catechism”, and the Great Commandment Sometimes we hear people debate a Christian’s greatest calling. A couple of professors from Liberty University (one teaches at the seminary) posted an article that reflects this debate very well. They ask: “So is it worship or evangelism? Which one is our greatest calling that deserves our most fervent effort?” They go on to say that the two are so closely connected that both deserve our top attention. (The article is about two pages and can be found at http://www.lifeway.com/Article/great-commission-worship-witness-evangelism.) In my experience worship and evangelism have been the activities most mentioned in American Christianity as the most important things we do. But is this what we find in the New Testament? Are worship and/or evangelism taught as the most important things that all Christians are called to? Strangely, the authors of the article don’t actually cite any verses Continue Reading →

Part 2 -When We Explain/Consider Our Faith What Is Our Central Theme? Spiritual Marriage

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If loving God is the greatest commandment why do we find the theme of “union” of love in Church history? Isn’t it going beyond scripture to add “union”? The great spiritual writers believed it was biblical because scripture is very clear that our love for God is not unrequited; He returns the love (which He initiated in the first place). Our relationship of love produces a union, since each one is loving the other and receiving love from the other. Mutual love produces union, as Colossians 3:14 states: “Beyond all these things put on love, which is [a]the perfect [grk. teleiotes] bond of unity.” (NASB) Footnote [a]: lit. ”the uniting bond of perfection”. We experience this union in part now but it is “not yet” fulfilled. One day our love will be consummated; but that will only be possible when we are completely transformed so that we can be fit Continue Reading →