Spiritual Growth - A Retrospective

With life being as hectic and busy as it is, we often times are forced to think at breakneck speeds, always living a week ahead of where we are. One of the biggest problems that this can cause is that we rarely stop to live in the moment anymore and the times that we do stop probably cause us all kinds of stress because we're afraid of falling behind. If we can't stop for a moment to enjoy what the LORD has given us today, how can we ever take time to look at the changes that have taken place in our lives over the past year or more and appreciate them? It is important that we must find time to do this, but it has to be done right because if you force the time you won't enjoy any part of this process. This is where setting priorities is so very important.

A friend recently mentioned to me that they had noticed how much better my relationship with God has gotten over the past year and that I have grown spiritually in ways that seemed unrealistic for where I was just one year ago. I thanked this person for bringing this point to my attention. Without that reminder, I may have never taken the time to relive the past year in my own mind. When I stopped and took time to look back, it showed me just how important doing this is and how important we need to make it. If you’re not a person that is good with prioritizing, then I suggest that you write a note to yourself or put it on your calendar to set one hour aside to just reflect on the changes that have taken place in you over the past year. Eventually making it a once a month event, kind of like checking in with yourself to make sure your on track.

As we grow in God, we advance from one level of understanding and maturity to another and as we achieve each new level, he reveals another level that we need to get to. Our growth is and should be a never ending process. God is perfect; none of us are or can ever dream to be. So we will always be a work in progress. I found though from looking back at the past year that I learned some things and became more familiar with other things. I got to see where I was at that time and where I've gotten to. I got to see the mistakes I have made and the land mines that I stepped on along the way. I saw where I got distracted and made other things more important than God. I also got to see the many things that I did right in getting to where I am at now. They say hindsight is 20/20, so if you use it you must have a perfect view of what you've done both good and not so good.

In advancing in our spiritual growth this can be priceless information. Most of what you can learn from your own past cannot be taught to you by anybody else. It's a personal experience and it's one of the best learning tools that we have. God looks at our hearts and he will certainly see the changes that we have made in our hearts over time. He'll see that we have learned and are maturing in the Spirit. Think of it as a house cleaning, by looking back at the past we will see what we should hang onto and what we should let go of. We need to let go of anything that can or will hinder our Spiritual growth. At the same time we need to cling closely to the things that have helped us.

Romans 12:1-2. Says, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.

In this passage we are asked the question. When we think of what God has done for us, is it too much to ask for us to give ourselves to him? I can’t imagine any believer saying no to that, but there are still many people that don’t have their eyes totally focused on God, so they don’t understand the full impact of the choice they’re making when they say no to him. Many people especially new believers have just as much unbelief as they do belief. It is the job of the mature believer to reach out and help these new believers along until they are strong enough in the spirit to walk on their own. Just like a baby penguin is sheltered until it is one day forced to go on its own, new believers too must be loved, protected and nourished with GODS WORD until they are able to walk on their own with God. It is then and only then that they will be able to say a resounding YES instead of a confused or insecure NO, when God asks them to turn their lives over to him.

If we all take the time to look back once in a while and do a self check on how we’ve progressed in our Christian walks, we will always be aware of the following things.

We will be always know which areas of our lives we need to improve upon.
We will see the things we’ve done right, so we can continue to do those things but even better.
We will create a habit of stopping to take time to enjoy where we are today and how we got there.

Be sure to stop and smell the Roses. God didn't make them to just stand there and look pretty.

I invite you to pray this with me.

Heavenly Father: Thank you for this message this week. Thank you for caring about us so much that you want for us to take the time to see and appreciate our own spiritual growth. Thank you also for the reminder that we need to slow ourselves down God. We cannot enjoy any of your creation if we don’t take the time. Father I ask that you would help us all to be better at managing our time. Whether it’s spending time communing with you, or spending time with our family’s and friends or just spending time alone relaxing, enjoying the beauty around us especially now with the Spring season beginning and all of the flowers and trees awakening from their winter slumber.
Father help us and equip us to be the guides for new believers. Instruct us how to protect, guide and feed them so they can grow their relationship with you.

I ask this in Jesus name.

Amen

God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”

Intimacy With God

We often say and hear others us the phrase “I AM A FRIEND OF GOD”. If so many people claim to be “friends of God”, wouldn’t you think that if we were really friend’s of God as we say we are, that we would not have to ask Him to show us His will. We know most of our other friends far better than that, so why should God be any different. He is the ONLY best friend you’ll ever need and he’ll never let you down or disappoint you. There is a level of intimacy that we need to reach in our relationships with God, where we would really know what his will is, because we spend so much time with him. I know that with any friend or family member, if you don’t spend time with them, you don’t know their likes, dislikes, or desires.

I know everything that my children like and dislike. That didn’t happen by accident or luck. I spent the time with them enough so that I saw and heard what they wanted and didn’t want. The same hold’s true for everything, especially GOD. If we don’t spend the time with HIM who is of utmost importance, how can we know what His likes and dislikes are about us? The answer is we can’t know unless we spend the time with him. How we spend the time isn’t really important. If you like reading the Bible, do it. If you like to sing praises to him, do it. Don’t feel that you have to follow some specific agenda to commune with God, that’s not necessary. He isn’t sitting there with a chart saying (OK. Bobby prayed once this week and read two pages of the Bible). It’s not like that at all, but there are many people that picture God as a bully just looking for us to make a mistake so that he can punish us. God does not look at what method we use to commune with him, He just cares about us doing it. It’s about our love for him and spending time, not how we do it.

Oh how he wants so much for us to spend that time with him. Think of how well the creator of the universe and everything in it knows us. He knows the exact count of hairs on our heads. Our names are written on his palm. He knows us so well because he loves each and everyone of us so much that he takes a huge interest in everything we do or think about. If we knew him even half as well as he knows us, imagine how different our lives would be. It shouldn’t take any thought at all to know in our hearts that the world would be a far better place. We probably wouldn’t recognize the planet compared to how it is today. Oh God, how I that pray this happens.

We are supposed to be spreading the word of God to the world, telling people about Jesus and about salvation. We can’t do this effectively unless we know God intimately enough, that we allow His Holy Spirit to speak through us. As believers we Love God and we try to live as righteously as we can. We share God’s love with those we’re comfortable with but are we really being bold in doing that? Acts 28:31 tells us about the apostle Paul. Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ.

If we had the intimacy with our Heavenly Father that we are supposed to have, we would have the confidence and ability to go into the world with great boldness professing his mighty word, telling people about our Lord Jesus Christ and offering them salvation. How great that would be, if we could do that as well as God wants us to. It’s all a matter of how much we give back to the LORD. We can’t just take all the time, we have to give back. He wants us to spend time with him, so let’s spend more time with him. Every day set time aside preferably at the beginning of your day, so nothing distracts you, and spend time in prayer. Talk to God like you’re talking to a close friend, tell him everything, the good and the bad, and be totally honest. He knows the truth anyway so there’s no sense in trying to hide anything from him. Spend more time reading the Bible, just pick it up and open it wherever you feel you should. That’s usually the perfect place to read from because God led you to that page, it was no accident. You’ll probably find something in the passage on that page that you can apply to your own life. Own it and bring it into your life through application.

Jesus tells us in John 15:1-5 "I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn't bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken. "Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can't bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can't bear fruit unless you are joined with me. "I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you're joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can't produce a thing.

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father I thank you for this message this week. Thank you for showing us the importance of spending time with you and how much you desire for us to do this. There are many instances in your word, where you tell us that we need to depend on you and not on ourselves for everything. Lord God I ask that you would help us to accomplish this. I know that once we start to spend more time with you and less time in the circumstances and situations of this world, there will be such a noticeable difference that it will be a life changing event. A desire will grow in each and every one of us God, to spend more and more time with you so that we come to know you as intimately and lovingly as you know us.

In Jesus name I pray

Amen

God Bless You All.








“The Sharpshooter”

Spiritual Food Groups

We often hear about eating from the food pyramid or "four food groups" for our physical health, but there are also several food groups (ways of studying God's word) that we should be using to be as spiritually full and healthy as we can be. The food groups I'm referring to are, your church, reading books or listening to CD's of Pastors or spirit filled people. A Pastor of any church has many different jobs to do, preaching, studying, counseling, wedding's, funeral's etcetera. By tapping into these other sources of being ministered to, you will not only have almost limitless sources of feeding your spiritual hunger, but you will also take a lot of pressure off of your Pastor by not expecting him or her to fill your every need.

Something I've noticed over the last few years, is that one of the things that lead to a Christian becoming complacent is the fact that they depend on one Church or Pastor to provide all they need. That's alot to ask of one Church or Pastor. This is not to say that we shouldn't have a church we call home, we absolutely should and that's the church we should be supporting financially, but let's look at it like this for a moment. God has put out this big banquet of food (knowledge) on this big buffet table (many churches, authors, teachings on cd) for our consumption. You cannot reach all of the food from one end of that buffet table. You sometimes need to step out of your comfort zone (your home church) and go around to another part of the table to get other kinds of food (teaching's) you want or need. There are people that I've come to know as well rounded believers and they’re doing well in their Christian walks, because they follow this kind of pattern. They have a church that they call home, but occasionally they visit other churches, or they read books by other Pastors or spirit filled people and/or listen to Cd's of other Pastors, to supplement their knowledge.

It makes sense that this would be beneficial, because every Pastor is going to preach differently, and each one will have different strengths. By supplementing our study of God's word by reading or listening to other Pastors, we first lighten the load on our Pastor's and at the same time, we have the opportunity to get different points of view and different interpretations of God's word. We can only become better Christians more prepared to endure by having many different sources of food (knowledge). For if we eat from only one food group (one source of teaching) we are not getting all of the nutrition (education) that we need. That's not fair to anybody, Pastor or congregation.

Another way to look at what I'm saying is this way. I'll use fishing as another illustration of what I mean. Let's say you go fishing (go to church, read or listen to a teaching on cd) each pond you go to has a different variety of fish. If you go to the same pond (source of teaching) all of the time, you will eventually get tired of eating the same type of fish. This can lead to a person getting to the point where they stop eating fish (attending church) altogether and that would be tragic. It would be far better for a person to go fishing in different ponds and enjoy the bounty of the various ponds (sources of teaching) that God has provided us with. Every preacher has something different to offer. Each has a different approach or a different delivery or a different set of communication skills. What feeds one person may not feed someone else. Try all of the varieties that that Lord has put before you. You will never go (spiritually hungry) following this pattern.

We the people (the church body and Pastors) are the church, not the building. In being the Church, we are in a relationship with Christ. Some realize this, while others don't, but the invitation is for everyone and through accepting the invitation everyone gets to know the Son and the Father better. When we accept Christ, it means we accept his teachings, we accept who he was for us, a Savior, and it means we do our very best to live the life he wanted us to live; a kind of life that is best for us, that brings us the most fulfillment, that brings us peace which is like the most beautiful harmony you can think of. God WANTS us to celebrate with him!

In order for us to be effective in serving others which I talked about last week, we need to have a strong a foundation in our faith. We need to be equipped with knowledge of God's word through as many sources as we can, to get a thorough understanding. When your reading the Bible, try using other references like "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance" this will help you can gain a clearer understanding of the Word to enrich your study. With all of the resources that we have to learn from, there is no excuse for us to not get our spiritual thirst's quenched.

Please pray this with me.

Heavenly Father, you are so good to us. You have provided us with so many resources to learn what your will is for us, that you’ve eliminated the excuses that we might have had at one time for not learning and growing in the Spirit. The only excuse that seems to be left is laziness and that's the worst excuse of them all. Lord God I ask that you would instill in us a thirst for more of you that could only be satisfied by studying your word God. I pray Father that you would help us with any motiational issues that we might have. We will always have room to improve in our study time, devotional time and prayer time. Lord God I pray that you would help us to be better servants to you and bring your word to the lost that need to hear it.

In Jesus Name I Pray.

Amen

God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”

The Virtue Of Humility

I‘d say it’s pretty much a certainty that we will never fully understand or make much of our lives, unless we first realize our place in this life. If we compare ourselves to God, we would see how lowly we are, how high God is and the immeasurable love that bridges that gap. We are living in a time when there is too much emphasis put on having self-esteem and not much emphasis on having Christ-esteem.

The number of people that don’t feel they have any need for a savior is growing, and if they don’t need Him, the certainly can’t love Him. They’re too full of themselves to have much room for Jesus. There are lots of people that profess to be Christians, yet they always complain about life, put themselves above others, mock other people and are selfish in other ways. They have too high a regard for themselves; they have too low a view of God and hardly any appreciation for what God has given them.

In all the time since the Bible was written, nobody has ever found a single verse in the Bible that taught them self-love and self-esteem. In fact we find just the opposite in Philippians 2:3. Don’t be selfish; don't live to make a good impression on others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourself. Human psychology's emphasis upon loving ourselves has skewed our perception of how we are supposed to be. No longer is our failure to love God with our entire being (heart, soul, and might) considered the gravest of sins and the root of all personal problems.

Instead, we are told that our problem has been a poor self-image and lack of self-love, and we are being urged to focus upon loving and esteeming and valuing ourselves. I agree that we absolutely need to think good things about ourselves for sure, but in no way does that mean we should have such a high regard for ourselves that we no longer need or appreciate our Heavenly Father.

God loves each of us so much that He wants to give us the greatest possible blessing: Himself!

How amazing is it that the almighty Creator of the universe offers Himself to such self indulgent creatures as us. His love is not an impersonal cosmic force; it is intimate and very personal. Think about that! Such love should awaken an impassioned response within us. Still, how many of us take time to express our love to God even once a day, not to mention loving Him with our entire being? Sadly, there are even Christians that are caught up in the forbidden love of the world and the pursuit of its deceitful rewards. 1John 2:15 say’s Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love the world, you show that you do not have the love of the Father in you. If loving God with one's whole being is the greatest commandment then not doing so must be the greatest sin - in fact, the root of all sin.

As Christians, it is very important for us not to lose our humility, for there is no better thing in this life then to live in humility, loving one another and loving God with all our hearts. Quite often though, our pride gets in the way and once the heart becomes corrupted by pride we begin to lose our love for not only God, but also for our neighbor. It is absolutely imperative for our spiritual health that we defeat pride by humbling ourselves in love before our gracious God. Let that love touch everyone around us, friend and enemy alike.

How do we practice the virtue of humility in such a competitive, winner-take-all world? I’m sure that we can all agree that humility is an admirable quality in others, because we feel safe and comfortable around people who are meek and humble. But when it comes to ourselves, we may consider humility a hindrance to success and a by-product of failure. You might question how anyone can achieve success without ambition and a competitive spirit? Competitiveness and humility can co-exist. Look to our “Special Olympians” for demonstration of this. When you look at those wonderful people, you will see a boat load of competitiveness mixed with humility and a heart as big as their bodies.

Each of us knows that as we continue on our Christian walks, we must avoid pride at all cost, since pride consumes all that is good in this life. A great example is the humility shown to us by Jesus Christ, which brings great satisfaction to the mind, heart, and soul, like a wonderful spiritual fragrance that comes from the love of God. What is more important than anything in this life is the love of our God for us! If we desire this love of God, then we must consider humility as a great Christian virtue in our life.

Philippians 2:5-8 says to Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death--and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.

In closing let’s remember what is told to us in 1 Peter 5:6. So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and in his good time he will honor you.

I invite you to pray this with me.

Heavenly Father, forgive us for those times when we have put ourselves first and others second. We know that this is not the pattern that the Bible teaches us to follow. I pray Father that each new day would see a gradual change in all of our hearts, that we would become more humble and develop a servant’s heart. Because in having a heart to serve others we put ourselves last and in your eyes that put’s us first. Father I pray that you would instill in us the strength to persevere until we have become the humble people you want us to be. As Christians we need to be the role models for the world. God help us to do this at a level that is even beyond our own ability. You are the one that makes the impossible become possible. I ask that you do this work in us.

In Jesus Name I Pray.

Amen

God Bless You All








“The Sharpshooter”