Christian Spiritual Growth
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Do you know that God loves you? Not just in your head but in your heart.
Do you experience His love for you moment by moment? If you don't, search the Word for His love letters to you—specific verses that speak directly to you about His love for you—they are there. |
“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you.” ~John 15:9
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Even when you fail, even when you feel miserable, God loves you. Do you believe that? Many Christians don’t. Way deep down, some believe that only a perfect performance merits God’s love; but yet we know in our minds that while we were yet sinners, Christ demonstrated His love for us through His overcoming death and resurrected life.
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Let’s examine two reasons Christians think they experience His condemnation more than they experience His love.
- PERFORMANCE
Often throughout our Christian lives, we find that "doing" for God gives us a security and so we think we are loved because we are doing for Him. When we don’t meet our own self-imposed standards or meet some other man’s or woman’s standards, we feel condemned by God.
Performance images not only cloud our minds but also stunt our growth, especially in relationship with the One Who will free us to love. We begin to think and believe that God doesn’t love us because we aren’t meriting His love—How could He love us when we are failing to perform?
- RELIGIOUS LIFE
Religious life, simply defined, is bargaining with God rather than walking with God. People who practice religious life believe that if they do such-and-so, then God will bless them with such-and-such. They create images to worship rather than worship their Creator. They place their faith in these images rather than faith in God. When their images fail them, which they always will, they believe God doesn’t love them.
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God will not interfere with your freedom to choose. He wants your yielded heart, freely given, and He has abundant grace for your journey. Many people need to walk through the performance mindset and/or the religious life mindset in order to come to the end of “self” before they see their need for relationship with God rather than performing for God.
Homeschooling is often one tool God uses to bring moms to that place of surrender. Marriage is another.
As the father of the prodigal son looked with hopeful anticipation for the return of his child, so too Father-God is waiting to meet you as you turn from your “self”-ways to Him. Father-God will run to you and bless you as you seek Him, just like the prodigal’s father. What love!
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As you courageously face your fears and turn/repent, read God’s love letter to you and feed His Spirit-in-you.
As His Spirit grows, you will begin to worship the Lord moment by moment and He will confirm He loves you. You will begin to see through sound doctrine that His love for you never fails and He is in the process of transforming your life for His glory and your benefit because He loves you so much. |
Will we move into our fear with the confidence of being His children? Our willingness to believe our true identity is crucial to finding Risking Intimacy: |
From this place—building from the gospel that Christ loves you right where you are—you will be empowered by that love to change. Knowing that He loves you—and experiencing that love moment by moment—you will begin to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
RENEWED MIND ~ CHANGED HEART
As your mind begins to be renewed, you will start to see a lot of ugly stuff coming out of your mouth and in your actions which reflects your heart. God uses your relationships and circumstances mightily in this process of change.
Relationships and circumstances bump your heart, and whatever comes out of your mouth or however you act in response to that bumping shows who you really are deep down. Seeing Who He is alongside who you are humbles you (to say the least). As you yield your heart to Him and confess your sin, He will purify you from all unrighteousness. He will make you new… because He loves you!
KINGDOM VESSEL
As He leads you and loves you through this process of change, of growing up into Christ your Head—your Source for real Life (not the false, superficial security you had experienced in the past)—He is also preparing you to love others with that same unconditional love He showered on you and with that same grace-filled leading with which He led you. He is preparing you to function as a part of the Church, His Body. What a vision!
So when you see your helpless state (I don't know how to parent my children; I don’t know how to walk with You, Lord; I’m miserable and failing), remember that you are not without HOPE! The hope is that as you yield to the Holy Spirit, He will change you. How can He do that? All He needs is a heart that is willing to respond to His love and leading.
His tool to change you.
If you have that willing heart right now, where do you begin with change? The answer to that question will be unique to each one of you. Ask yourselves these questions: Where do I keep making excuses for my flesh? For example, "Grace doesn't come naturally to me," "I've just never been an organized person," "My parents were controlling; that's why I'm controlling." Although these things (and others like them) may be true, they are things that the Lord's empowering love and life can change in you.
And when you allow Him to change you, you may be breaking generational sin cycles. What a vision! Sin broken for generations to come. Thank You, Lord!
"How do I begin to change?"
Through your willingness and obedience. Choose one area that He brings up over and over again in your life and begin to yield that one thing to Him. Perhaps He might have you do a Bible study on the word "grace," for example. Perhaps He wants you to make a menu for the month and stick to it. Perhaps he wants you to identify areas where He is showing you that control is ruining a relationship (husband, perhaps?). One simple thing at a time, baby steps of obedience, will set you on a path to change.
Will you fail? Absolutely! What will God do when you fail? Will He yell at you and tell you how much you annoy Him? Of course not!
He will come alongside you and pick you up and show you how to try again, holding your hand along the way, cheering you on, correcting, exhorting, encouraging, loving. Whatever He does for you, that's what He wants you to do for others in His Body. Learn from Him. Become more like Christ. He will love you through the process of change. Wherever you are in your journey with the Lord, He loves you.
just as your willing and obedient heart blesses Him.
that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
~Ephesians 3:14-19
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BE RELEASED TO HIS LOVE FOR YOU |
Perhaps you do not believe God loves you or you believe that your sin is simply too great to be forgiven. Maybe you feel unworthy of His presence in your life. Perhaps you lack the peace that will move you forward in depth of relationship with your Savior.
If you desire the assurance that you have been forgiven and made clean and want to receive the peace that passes understanding, please consider signing up for the Levitical Sacrifices Meditations. You can read more about this series here or simply sign up below to begin today.
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~Ephesians 1:18-19
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