“Most of us turned to Christ when we realized there was a difference between Christianity as a religion and Christianity as a relationship,” writes Ken Gire. “Sometime after entering into that relationship with Christ, we realized something else. That there is a difference between a personal relationship with Christ and an intimate one.” You must cooperate with God’s leading and direction in your life, and make the necessary investments to position yourself for his ongoing work in your life, in order to enhance his creative activity. While spirituality consist of being, not doing, there are things to do that will help you be! ~James Emery White in A Traveler’s Guide to the Kingdom:Journeying through the Christian Life, p. 48.
Category Archives: Spiritual Formation
Oh Be Careful Little Fingers What You Type…
Today I listened to Blaine Workman’s podcast: Learning to Speak TOBOG. He was speaking about our speaking — the words we say. He noted that if Paul were writing to the Ephesians today, he might say words like this:
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouth or flow from your fingers. Texting, twitter, facebook, blogs — they are all helpful tools for communicating in our digital age, none of them good or bad in and of themselves. But the rotting verbal garbage that some Christians are willing to post in texts or online is just appalling. It has no place among God s people. In some weird inexplicable way, talking to their electronic device somehow frees people to spew the most vile and corrupting talk in ways they’d be ashamed to do, speaking face to face with the real person. And brothers and sisters, the anonymity of cyberspace is no license for corrupting talk. If your brother sins against you, Jesus says, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. Today, we go tell the whole world in an anonymous post in a blog somewhere… ~Pastor Blaine Workman
That’s a bold thing for a pastor to say. It’s especially bold today, because it’s a quick way to be unfriended in social media.
Take a listen to Pastor Blaine yourself. Maybe you could post it on your own facebook or other social media page.
I dare you.
Who is that baby?
That’s the question that was on my mind when I saw little John without his twin in church Sunday. I knew he looked familiar, but I hadn’t taken a good look at him in a couple of weeks and seeing him out of context, I honestly couldn’t identify him. At that age, looks change quickly.
How quickly do you change?
Speaking to a woman recently, she was commenting on the fact that she wasn’t as disciplined as she wished. She compared herself to others in the church and said, “I am just not a disciplined person.” Neither am I. But if I could step back from my life, I might see that I am more disciplined than I used to be.
Generally discipline is considered a fruit of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5). Several of those, mose clearly self-control, are related to self-discipline. They are fruit.
Since they are fruit of the Spirit, then they are there by the work of the Holy Spirit in our life. And since they are fruit, they probably don’t appear spontaneously, but come to be through activities such as planting, growing, cultivation, weeding, feeding, and watering — all of which take time.
I think a key to self-discipline is having a determination to never give up. And if you are to remain steadfast, then you have to believe you are growing — that you are developing in the area of discipline. Seeing self-discipline as a process is a good start.
It would also be good to observe that you are indeed growing. As a child, my parents let us mark our height on the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. I remember marveling at how much I had grown through the years. It’s tough to remember where we were in the area of spiritual discipline, so maybe it would be helpful for us each to note the growth we’ve seen in one another. And maybe it would be good to take a risk with a trusted friend and ask, “Do you see places in my life where I have grown?” Such a risk might encourage us more than we expect.
Little John will only be little John for a few more years. Then, I have a feeling, he will be John. And eventually, maybe Big John. If only our spiritual development were as easily recognizable as the physical development of a baby — we might just find ourselves encouraged to lean forward and grow even more.
Have You Ever Asked: How did I become so bitter?
I have been listening to Erwin McMannus in recent days, specifically his podcasts in his sermon series Artisan. When talking about Job, he said something that struck me.
Bitterness usually doesn’t set in because of what happened to you; Bitterness usually sets in through your interpretation of why it happened to you. The brokenness that settles deep in your soul — I know this is going to be hard for you to believe but it’s not there because of what you experienced — of what happened. It is there because of your interpretation of your conclusion of why it happened to you.
It can cause you to take on a filter, a mindset of victimization for the rest of your life which will cause you to live a life of powerlessness for the rest of your life. It will cause you to misdirect your strength, trying to control the outside world that you have no control over, while relinquishing responsibility and control for your inner-world which you have full control over. ~Erwin McMannus, Artisan: Interpretation – Translation of Life, 2012
To come through adversity in life in a manner that’s healthy, it’s essential we grasp this reality.
Online Devotionals…
This winter, Laurel was leading a small group on Becoming a Woman of Love.
Early on, she started to write devotionals for the women in the group. Although the group meetings have come to a close, she’s still writing devotionals. You can find them here at http://curwensvillealliance.org/laurel/
Feel free to subscribe and pass the site along to anyone you feel would benefit.
~Steve