Is Spiritual Growth a Miracle?

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discerning the spirits, exhortation, experience, immaturity, love, maturity, obedience, spiritual growth, T.A. Sparks

“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5 ESV)
Photo by Susanne Schuberth

Today I want to present you a thought-provoking article by T. Austin Sparks that deals with our (in)ability to grow spiritually. Actually, if we do not grow, we will wither since if it is not the Holy Spirit inside us that causes us to grow in Christ, it is Satan to whom we listen and who pulls us away from God. Brothers and sisters, this may happen to anyone. Don’t we think that such a temptation could always be easily discovered by our spiritual antennas. Indeed, there are people who due to their bad experiences in life project a distorted image of man onto God and call this image God or Jesus although these ‘pictures’ are, in fact, of satanic origin. If someone cannot discern which spirit they are of, they will be completely lost unless they dare to trust other Christians who could help them see when they are wrong. Regarding such errors, it got quite clear to me why we should be part of the Body of Christ. A finger apart from the body is useless; it must be connected to the hand and the hand must be connected to the arm which belongs to the body so that this finger can work properly (cf. 1 Cor 12:12-27). Furthermore, the whole body must be connected to the head which is Christ in us. Without Him we would be a body without spiritual guidance and an easy prey for any deception, spiritual confusion, and eventually delusion.

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Rethinking Maturity, Time and Eternity

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age, being born again, Dorothy L. Sayers, ecstasy, encouragement, exhortation, experience, faith, feeding on Christ, God's love, maturity, mystics, psychology, spiritual maturity, the Kingdom of God, youth

Auferstehungskirche Fürth
(Photo by Susanne Schuberth)

I do hope that the excerpt by Dorothy L. Sayers below gives you some food for thought as to rethinking those concepts of youth and age our current culture proclaims, and which, in my view, have infiltrated the Church more than she is aware of. We read about “senior pastors” who are in their 40s (at most) and about training the next generation of church leaders, pastors, and elders, by simply teaching them tradition, theological theories, and doctrines. Indeed, the amount of books one has read does not make him spiritually mature. And the number of years we have believed in Jesus does not make us any more mature than a newborn child (speaking spiritually here). Actually, it is all about experiencing God in our own life and knowing that He can be trusted in every given situation. This kind of faith is nothing that can be taught and nothing we can soak in by reading about it only. Testimonies from others might point us in the right direction if they whet our appetite for experiencing God’s love and His kingdom first-hand. Yet they cannot provide the meat we only get when we leave the area of being fed by men and their different views of Christianity far behind. We need to feed on Christ who alone is our true food and drink.

How to Persevere in Faith

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believing, discipline, experience, fear, following Jesus, healing power, Jesus Christ, knowing God, maturity, Oswald Chambers, pain, small faith, spiritual power, true faith

Picture taken from
http://christianitymalaysia.com/wp/heart-cry-discipleship/)

Blank mind, blank heart, blank sheet – aka FAITH. 😉 Or in other words, our faith may have no other basis than……….the power of God, as our friend and brother Paul said here,

“And I, when I came to you, brothers,1 did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Cor 2:1-5 ESV)

How do we get there?