Spiritual Growth

June 11, 2019

“Grow In the Knowledge of God”

2 May God give you more and more grace and peace as you grow in your knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. — 2 Peter 1:2 NLT

2 Peter 1:2-8 NLT

We have all heard the story many times of couples that live together for years. As time passes, they take on each other’s attitudes and characteristics.  They even get to the point that they can finish each other’s sentences.  As we spend time with our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, we do the same thing. We start to take on His characteristics of grace, godliness, affection, and His love for others. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to finish God’s sentences?  We will  never get to that point, but we can become more like Him every day, if we will just commit to spending time with Him and meditating on His Word.
After You have talked to Him, allow plenty of time for Him to talk to You. He has a lot to tell you and He has an unending stream of love that He wants to lavish on you.  Be still, wait on Him to speak, and really, really listen. When just knowing about Him isn’t enough and you get to the point of wanting to know HIM, your attitude toward others and your outlook on life will begin to change for the better.

As we spend more time with God, we are slowly being changed into His image.

2 Cor. 3:16-18 NLT

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” – Anonymous

Post 06-11-2019

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March 10, 2017

Christ Lives In Us!

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 Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us  — Col. 3:11b NLT
Col. 3:9-15 NLT

As Christ becomes more real to us, and as we learn to be obedient to the urging of His Spirit abiding in us, we realize more and more, the weaknesses we have and our inability to control them. Until we can say “I can’t but Jesus can”, we will always have these temptations of the flesh. We have to allow Jesus to control our urges and desires. The more we allow Him to do so, that much more of our sinful nature is stripped away and we put on more of His nature. It doesn’t matter what your ethnicity or your past is. The only thing that matters is Christ in us. Since we are God’s holy people, we must clothe ourselves with His characteristics. Love, mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience is what Jesus looks like. What about us, what do people see when they look at us?

Gal. 5:22-26 NLT


“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

Post 03-10-2017

February 24, 2017

Maturity Requires Daily Nourishment

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9 I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and that you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. — Philippians 1:9 NLT
Phil. 1:9-11 NLT

The way we keep on growing spiritually is to keep meditating on God’s Word. We must spend time alone with God each and every day. Reading God’s Word, meditating on it, praying and practicing what we have learned is the way we grow and attract others to Christ. We can only attempt to live pure and blameless lives, but it would be totally impossible without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The time we spend in study will help us to live lives filled with the righteous character of God. This will bring praise and glory to God, which is our primary purpose for being here.


“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous

 

Post 2-24-2017

February 15, 2017

Spiritual Steroids

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 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
— Ephesians 3:19 NLT
 
Ephesians 3:14-21 NLT

It is impossible for us to even imagine the glory, power and strength of our God. His power is unlimited and we have access to it all. If we ask Him, He will come live with us in our hearts. We can never fully understand His love for us. He is the beginning and the end. We are incomplete without Him. He makes us complete with all the fullness of life. We are not even able to ask Him to do for us all the things He wants to do. These human bodies would explode if God just dumped all His power upon us. Our finite minds do not have the ability to conceive all the things God is capable of doing for us. “To God be the glory, great things He has done” , is doing, and will continue to do.

“The Gospel has come to you because it’s on its way to someone else.” -Anonymous
Post 02-14-2017
August 6, 2015

No Valleys, No Mountains

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5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because,
“God opposes the proud
but shows favor to the humble.”
6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. — 1 Peter 5:5 ​,6 ​NIV

​In today’s “me first” society, we are fed a steady diet of “it’s all about me”. Everything from billboards, ads, commercials, to the design of the clothing we wear screams “look at me”.  This worldly diet leads to death, not life.  If we can get past all the nonsense about atheism and “Jesus was just a good man, not a Messiah” arguments, we find that the real problem people have with Christianity is that it requires submission to a higher power. That word “submit” lights a fire under those who are proud and haughty. “I have come this far by myself, why should I submit to anyone?”  There is not one single vocation or avocation that does not require us to submit to someone sometime. Retailers submit to the demands of their customers. Designers submit to the whelms of modern society. In a peaceful society, we all submit to one another to some degree. Spouses and parents submit to each other and to the wants and desires of their children. Jesus submitted to death on a cross, the most painful and shameful way to die. Jesus humbled Himself, giving up all His glory in heaven to experience everything a human being experiences and He did so without sinning. His humbleness and humility defeated sin and satan and God exalted His Son above everything and every being, giving Him all authority in heaven and earth.  If we want to have great power in our lives, we must go through the valleys of humbleness and meekness. If it weren’t for the valleys, we wouldn’t have any mountains.
Post 08-06-2015