Category: Spiritual Theology

The theology of spiritual growth & sanctification

searching God distant sky night telescope

Does God Seem More Distant? It’s An Opportunity!

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God is very big on faith. It is the way we connect with Him and it is even the way we are saved. In  human relationships faith, or trust, is a precious commodity as well. We might love someone with all our heart but still not trust them because we deem them untrustworthy. A mother may be willing to die for her wayward adult son, but not trust him enough to let him live with her because of his destructiveness. But God is not destructive, just mysterious and challenging, and trusting Him takes time. This is why He goes to great lengths to develop faith in us. After we have been following Jesus for several years God will typically take away our sense of His presence in order that we might learn deeper faith. He does this because He loves us and wants to be more united with us. And Continue Reading →

heaven, on earth, sun

Do We Have Our Heavenly Blessings Now? Ephesians 1:3-14

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Does it seem mysterious to you to say that we have “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”? (Eph. 1:3) ESV. This idea has seemed very abstract and fuzzy to me, especially the part about the blessings being in heavenly places. Why does it say the blessings are in heavenly places instead of in our hearts? And if the blessings are in heavenly places and we are living on earth does that mean we are separated from our blessings somehow? Do we have to wait until the next life until we have them? As we look at Ephesians 1:3-14 we can see that Paul lists the heavenly  blessings he refers to in verse 3. If we look at these blessings perhaps we can answer some of our questions.  Verse 4: God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world He chose us to be holy and blameless before Continue Reading →

candy spiritual sweet tooth

Do You Have A Spiritual Sweet Tooth?

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We all love to feel the presence of God. We love times when we feel his love or joy welling up inside us. We feel free and light or just tremendous peace. But what about the rest of the time when we don’t feel God’s presence or power? Do we find ourselves making every effort to reclaim the spiritual sweetness we had? Seeking spiritual sweetness is okay to an extent. God wants us to feel good and He wants us to feel joy and peace. He wants to be with us as much as we want to be with Him. But there is some things that are more important than spiritual sweetness in the Christian life. Two come to mind. First, submission to God’s will. If we truly want to be in Christ then we should find ourselves seeking God’s will more than seeking spiritual sweetness. God may not want Continue Reading →

spiritual growth

Four Stages Of Christian Maturity – Considering Where We Are

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Over the centuries many Christian teachers have outlined what it looks like to become a mature Christian. These outlines, or guides, are helpful because they help us see what we are “aiming” for in our Christian life. In other words, they tell us what it means to become a mature Christian. The New Testament speaks many times about what it means to be “mature” or “complete” (sometimes the word “perfect” is used but it means complete in the Greek.) This idea that Christians grow spiritually and that we can describe what this looks like along the way is referred to as “stages of growth”. We could also refer to these stages as phases or processes. These stages are supposed to encourage us because they describe the good that is ahead for us. In other words, we know what to look forward to. The clearest descriptions in Scripture of some stages Continue Reading →

Incredible Motivation To Live For Eternity

Incredible Motivation To Live For Eternity

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I enjoy tennis. And I want to continually improve because it brings some joy to hit the ball well instead of hitting it over the fence. Also, playing well allows me to compete with others without being embarrassed and enjoy the competition. So I am motivated to improve and I am willing to sacrifice for it. Awhile ago I wanted to improve my forehand stroke by practicing with a ball machine. When I finally had time I checked the weather – it wasn’t good. It was cold and windy which is not good weather for standing and hitting balls from a ball machine. Should I go? I debated briefly but I decided to go. I was willing to sacrifice comfort for the sake of improving my forehand. In fact it was cold and miserable and I spent about 20 minutes of my 60 minutes setting up and taking down the Continue Reading →