Spiritual Growth

THIS WEEK has been amazing. Okay, so one evening I was listening to 88. 1 "The Promise" on my clock radio. I heard a song whose chorus was composed of the last two verses of Psalm 139, one of my very favorite places I've seen so far in the Bible. Those lines go "[23] Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my thoughts; [24] And see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Taken line by line this is a request for God to look through every part of our hearts and reveal what still needs to change, what needs correction, so that changes can be made and we grow closer to God because we've put away the things He doesn't like. I love this. It's one of a few places in the Bible that I just love referring to because it speaks right to me. God speaks to us through His Word, the Bible. When I read this I know He's talking to me because this is exactly what I want: I want Him to keep changing me and showing me what I need to quit, and what I need to start, so I can ask for His help in undergoing changes.
Okay, now get this. Listening to that song reminded me of these words, and the next day I was praying them. Then I cracked open my devotional book, and can you guess what Bible reference was attached to the story for that Friday? Try to guess. It was Psalm 139. This is one way I've noticed God gets my attention: I'll have a specific verse of chapter on my mind, or I'll be tied up with one particular concern, and He'll refer me right to the place, whether or not I've scene the verse much before,in that devotional book.
I suggest you go read Psalm 139. It's all about how well God knows us and how carefully He watches us, how we love to honor Him and hate to dishonor Him, and how we long for Him to correct us so we can please Him better. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that is the prayer of my heart.
This week I think He's answering that prayer by challenging me to come know Him better. The last few weeks I've been talking about what it means to pursue His kingdom and how amazing it is that He wants us so much. You know, He tells us to pursue Him because He wants us to love Him back. That's what He's teaching me this week: I am supposed to love God more than I love anything or anyone else in the world. Everything in my life must revolve around Him, or else it all falls apart. I again heard Pastor Ryan's story about himself and his fiance Shelby. I covered this before a few months ago (See "On the Throne of your Heart"). Ryan had been engaged to Shelby for a few months and he didn't have any peace about it. So despite how much it hurt, he broke off the engagement. He was having tremendous trouble moving on, so one night God told him simply "She is on the throne of your heart." God told him that he had made Shelby an idol, and he couldn't have peace marrying an idol. So he let go of Shelby completely to pursue God, and a few months later God revealed to him that he should marry Shelby. He had taken her off the throne. They will be married next Saturday, praise God!
This gave me a good reminder that absolutely nothing and nobody ever needs to be nearly as important to me as God. That doesn't mean attending church diligently or spending time with Christian company all the time - that's necessary, but that's not what it means to love God. Loving God is pursuing Him, putting Him first, giving up what I want in favor of what He wants. It's wanting Him more, and wanting to want Him more every day. It's finding my satisfaction and delight in Him and nowhere else, because anything else is a foundation of sand (Matthew 7:24-29) and it fails. He won't share with anyone either: I can't have part of me or even most of me surrendered to what He wants and not all of me. That's like having only part of your house founded on rock and part on the sand. It still falls down. It doesn't work. God designed loving Him to be all, or nothing. He even put that pattern into the Christian faith He invented: You can't have Jesus as the only way to God AND some other ways being acceptable. It's Jesus alone, or it's no Jesus at all, not Jesus and Buddha and somebody else.
So God wants us to love Him. He is jealous for our love, meaning that He doesn't want to share with anyone. After all, He deserves it all. That doesn't mean we don't love anyone or care about anything. It mean we love God so much that nothing else matters nearly AS MUCH. When we love Him, He actually teaches us to love others, even our enemies, as He loves them.
And because I love God, I'm supposed to grow spiritually. I am definitely not supposed to just suck up information from church and other sources and never act on it. I'm supposed to demonstrate growth: check out 2 Peter 1:4-9 (Pastor Russ discussed this passage this morning, and guess what? It was referenced in my devotional book today. God has my attention). "[4] by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the diving nature, having escaped the corruption which it in the world through lust. [5] But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, [6] to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverence, to perseverence godliness, [7] to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. [8] For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. [9] For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins." One thing should follow another: when we have faith we should obtain virtue, and so on, and we are supposed to increase in these things. It shows growth. But look at the last two verses: If we do have these characteristics and they increase in us, then our knowledge about Jesus is effective and productive. If we don't have these characteristics increasing in us, it's like a room full of wonderful books that are never opened. No matter how many books you collect, they are useless if you just let them collect dust and never take them out to read or teach from. I'm not talking about the importance of reading your Bible - that's really important - I'm talking about what you do with what you've learned. Do you realize God's talking to you through that Bible? He talks to me and He shows me important things. What I've learned this week is that I want to experience God more. I want to hear Him more clearly when He talks to me and pay attention when He shows me something. This week I'm really going to be getting into this Bible, looking into the Gospels as well as places I haven't already looked, because God's everywhere in there. From Genesis to Revelation, He's saying something great.
I want to experience God's presence in a way that I haven't done before. I'm gonna set my eyes on the eternal and stare at what's true. Look at 2 Corinthians 3:18. "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord." Those are some major words. It means that as we look into God - His Word, His actions, His nature - with the veil, our sinful tendency, taken off, we are at once both learning about His glory and seeing it manifest itself in our own nature as He transforms us. Information, the things we learn when we listen to God and to other Christians, must turn into transformation in order to bring about any good. And because of God's Spirit, given to us to help us grow spiritually and resist temptations daily, we become more and more like Jesus. That is what it means to grow, and that is what God wants us to do. He wants to lead us to spiritual maturity. Spiritually mature people are very humble, and they look alot like Jesus. They understand that they will never be done growing, and I hope that's where I get.
Okay, thank you for reading! I have enjoyed blogging. God bless, and may you learn something wonderful from Him this week. He's saying something good. Please post any comments or ideas or notes that you want to!