spiritual growth

What would you think if I told you that you could live without fear? Would you believe me if I said that despite what you saw on the news tonight, you could be perfectly at peace? Impossible? Unrealistic? No!

You see, fear isn’t just a reaction to external circumstances. It’s a spiritual force. It begins inside of you. And it is totally destructive. In fact, fear is Satan’s primary weapon. He moves in response to fear, the way God moves in response to faith. He challenges the promises of God with it.

I can’t tell you how many born-again, Holy Ghost-filled Christians pick their pastor apart on Saturday night and then expect him to pray the prayer of faith for them Sunday morning! They’ll constantly make critical comments about the evangelists and preachers that God has sent to minister to them and then wonder why the rain of the Spirit has all but dried up in their churches.

The more you fellowship with God around His Word, the more you’ll know the “power outflowing from His resurrection.” You’ll develop joy. You’ll develop faith. You’ll start developing God’s own characteristics...just by fellowshiping with Him. You’ll begin to understand who you really are in Jesus.

I remember one day I was reading the story of the woman with the issue of blood who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and was healed.

A lot of people have been playing games when it comes to the Word. They claim to be faith people in public. But, in private, they never open the Bible at all. Then, when a time of trouble comes and they try to stand on the Word, they fall flat on their spiritual faces.

Well, the time for playing games is over. It’s time for us to realize that real faith involves action. James 2:20 says faith without works [or corresponding action] is dead.

When an athlete goes into training, he practices to improve his skills. He works hard, repeating the same motions over and over until they become what we’d call “second nature” to him.

Most of us understand how crucial that kind of training is in the physical realm. We know that you simply can’t be a winner without it. But did you know we can train ourselves that same way where spiritual things are concerned?

Do you ever have seasons in your life when it seems like every time you go to church and every time you spend time in prayer and every time you open the Bible, you receive a revelation from God? I do. Spiritually, everything will be going great. I’ll be higher than a Georgia pine. Then, suddenly, something starts to happen. I start drying up in spiritual things.

It seems like it doesn’t make any difference what I pray or how much I read the Word, I can’t get anywhere spiritually. I’m so dry my spirit’s creaking!

There’s a spiritual flood coming. God has promised it. He’s promised us an outpouring of Holy Spirit power that will bring in the greatest harvest of souls any of us have ever seen.

As believers, we’ve been reading about it in the Word and hearing about it from the pulpit for years. We’ve been staring toward heaven so long, waiting for it to come, that we’ve gotten cricks in our spiritual necks. We’ve had this mental image of God pouring down His Spirit from some sort of big heavenly pitcher above us.

But you know what? We’ve been looking in the wrong direction!

Have you ever thought about the fact that man is the only creature God created who has to wear clothing to cover himself? All the other creatures grow their own coverings. Some grow fur, some feathers, others scales or leathery hide. But all are clothed from the inside out!

Most people don’t realize it, but in the beginning, man was clothed that way too. He was made in the image of God. And, if you’ll look in Ezekiel 8:2, you’ll find that God is clothed in fire from the loins up and from the loins down. That fire is His glory emanating outward from His innermost being.

If you hang around God very much, it won’t be long before you’ll start wanting to do things the world considers supernatural. You’ll start wanting to lay hands on the sick and have them recover. You’ll start wanting to cast out demons. You’ll start wanting to cast mountainous problems into the sea.

What’s more, you can do it if you want to!

How? Not by jumping out and “trying” to do supernatural things, but by obeying God one step at a time. By doing the things He’s already given you power to do.

Whenever you find yourself stumbling into failure or sin, check your love life. Sit down with the Lord and ask Him to show you if you’re in strife with anyone or if you’ve taken offense. If you have, the devil can come in and trip you up.

As a preacher, I’ve seen that happen countless times. I’ll be preaching about something and some believer will get upset with me about it. He’ll decide I’m wrong and go off in a huff—and first thing you know, he’s in trouble.

Most of us would never dream this verse could apply to us. After all, we’re believers! We’d never say that there is no God.

But maybe we should think again. It’s true that with our mouths we would never say something like that...but don’t we sometimes say it with our actions?

We say it by sinning just a little here and there and thinking it won’t matter. We’ll go to an immoral movie or have a gossip session about the pastor, ignoring God’s command to the contrary.

With our actions we’re saying, “There is no God.”

Resurrection. What do you think of when you hear that word? Most people think of the past. Of a stone rolled away. An empty tomb. And a risen Lord.

Praise God, Jesus is alive today, isn't He?

What we don't fully understand is this: He's not the only One who has been resurrected. We've been resurrected too!

We were spiritually resurrected the day we made the Lord Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives. That day we passed from death to life. The greater part of your resurrection has already happened!

Some people have the mistaken idea that when the direction of the Holy Spirit comes to them, they can just ignore it for a while if they want to and then obey Him later in their own good time. They think to themselves, I know what I'm doing is wrong. I know my lifestyle isn't right, but I'm just going to do it a while longer. Then I'll get things straightened out with the Lord.

If you know how to listen to the voice of God, you can hear Him calling throughout the Body of Christ today. He is calling for unity. He is calling us to lay down our disagreements and come together in preparation for Jesus' return.

Just the thought of that scares some believers. "How can I unify with someone from another denomination?" they say. "I'm not going to give up my doctrines and agree with theirs just for unity's sake!"

What they don't realize is this: scriptural unity isn't based on doctrine.

Most believers don't know anything about true humility. If you tell them they're the righteousness of God, they'll fight to keep from believing it. You can give them scripture references to prove it, and they'll still argue.

"Oh no," they'll say, "I'm not righteous. I'm just an old sinner saved by grace." They're making a sincere attempt to be humble. But they're sincerely wrong. They're so afraid of being exalted by pride that they've let Satan trick them into falling right into it.

If you give the devil place, he will take it. You have to stay alert and keep your shield of faith high because if you don't, he'll turn around and steal back from you the ground you just took.

There have been people who have received their healing and have fallen back into their old thinking patterns of sickness. They let their faith down and gave the devil an opening. When he came along with an old symptom, they weren't ready for him. They fell victim to his counterattack.

Self-consciousness is a major problem in the Body of Christ today. It keeps us from doing the things God tells us to do. Instead of simply obeying Him, it makes us start to wonder, Now what will people think of me if I do that? What if I command that person to get out of the wheelchair and he doesn't get up? What if I start believing for prosperity and go broke? What about that, God? I won't look too good, will I?

You won't really get excited about the Word of God until you realize that it's more than just a collection of divinely-inspired promises. It's a living force that literally carries within it the power to make those promises become a reality in your life.

Is it tough for you to believe such a thing is possible?

It shouldn't be. You see it happen in the natural world all the time.

You're spiritually "grown up" or mature when, through practice, you have trained your senses to discern between good and evil. You've practiced walking in the spirit and renewing your mind by the Word of God until even your flesh habitually goes God's way instead of the world's way.

Stop and think for a moment. Aren't there some things your old flesh used to pressure you to do before you made Jesus Lord of your life that you don't even want to do anymore?

Too often we ask God to fix the problems around us when what He really wants to do is solve the problem within us. I did that myself for years where my weight was concerned. I prayed and prayed for God to help me lose weight. Yet I experienced repeated failure. I lost literally hundreds of pounds, only to gain them right back again.

Finally one day, I made a firm decision. I told God, "I am not going one step further until I find out what to do about this!" Then I went on a fast, shut myself away from everyone, and determined to hear from God.