are several photos from my visit to Jerusalem & Jordan as well as a website update & some thoughts on Spiritual Strength. Enjoy!
Saturday, August 13, 2011
WEBSITE UPDATE
At this time I have arranged to close my website at the end of the month. The material on it pretty much all still stands however. I am a faith-based counselor and I can be reached at ecbcfbt@gmail.com The Lord is leading me in a little different direction, ministry-wise, but I am still available on a regular basis for counseling & coaching according to Biblical principles. This can be done online, in person, or on the phone.
SPIRITUAL STRENGTH
Our spirit & our strength in Christ is enhanced by the voice we hear, the tears we cry, & the humility we embrace. In the past I have read such encouraging & insightful books as The Power of the Spirit, The Bondage Breaker, A Call to Discernment, Telling the Truth to Troubled People, Scripture Twisting, The Seduction of Christianity, and Radical Christianity. I have come to understand that life is most fruitfully led by understanding how to hear the voice of your Lord, turning your mourning into dancing, & finding the joy in humility. Our spirit is transformed as we live life seeking the face & will of God, trusting him in every circumstance. It is no easy feat to trust God in the difficult times of our lives sometimes, yet who else would we trust? Who else could & should we trust? These books in particular appealed to me because as I matured in Christ I realized some important things-there are many troubled folks out there in the world, Christians in general do not have a clue how to access the power of the Holy Spirit, & a great many people do live in bondages they may not even recognize. In addition, many fall victim to the subtle twisting of scripture that invades our lives on various levels, Christians are very seduced by religion, & discernment is ever more increasingly important in the world we live in. If we are going to be radical about anything, it should be our faith in Jesus Christ as our savior, our pursuit of the Holy Spirit as our counselor, and our reliance on our creator.
Scripture tells us that his sheep hear his voice-if you do not feel you ever hear the voice of God in your spirit, you may need to review your understanding of being a believer or study the topic of hearing the voice of God, starting with scripture itself & what God says about that. If you are frequently falling & failing in things you were very sure you would succeed in it is possible you have fallen into the trap of pride, one of the enemy's favorite weapons to cause folks to trip up in everything from relationships to finances and far more. Remember, it is the meek that will inherit the earth. If you are more overwhelmed by tearful circumstances than you leverage them to grow in Christ, you may be spending too much time focusing on the problem & too little time focusing on the Lord.
We all grow at different rates & in different ways but we can & should all grow according to the word of God-it has been said babies aren't born with instruction manuals, but they are! It is called the Bible & is meant to be the measure we grow by until we go to heaven to live in that mansion God has already prepared for us. The book I am reading now is called Christian Antiquities in Jordan which may seem like a far cry from the others I mentioned, but indeed it is not! I recently had the joy of visiting Jordan & Jerusalem! When you read scripture it seems somewhat removed from your personal experience often, but when you actually stand in places like the Old City of Jerusalem & reflect on the death of Christ with all that surrounded it, it starts to become more real. You may never get there-I didn't think I would. However, you can do the next best thing-you can read books about it & look up so much about it online, complete with photos, that you begin to feel the realities of God in a new way. When you visit such places in Jordan as the baptismal site of Christ & Mt. Nebo where Moses looked across into the promised land you sense the power of God in a new way. I wasn't able to see all of what I would have liked to, but I have spent a lot more time since then researching & studying some of the things I didn't see. You can too. Most of us aren't Biblical scholars in the true sense of the word, but we also should not be just readers of the word, but researchers of the word. This is done not only online and through books but in our daily prayers as we ask the Lord to make his voice clear to us, to develop in us a Godly humility, & to use our circumstances to grow us in our spiritual strength.
Our world is so much more expansive & complicated than it was 2,000 years ago it is even easier to fall victim to the devices of the enemy of God & his people. If spiritual strength was ever important, it is important today. We don't get it by simply going to church, reading the Bible, praying, or even living a moral life including service to God. Many people do all of these things, yet have no spiritual strength whatsoever. Many of them do not even know it, or know that to live victoriously it is needed. We get it by forming & nurturing a personal relationship with God-by being a friend of God-by being a child of God-in realistic terms. That requires that we integrate God into the fabric of our being, that we submit our lives to him as our Lord (meaning he makes the decisions, not us), and that we don't simply give him superficial acknowledgement but that we care what he thinks about our thoughts, words and deeds! When we care about this it shows in our spiritual strength! It is reflected in our humility, our obvious following of the voice of God, & our recovery from life's toughest times a wiser believer.
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