Hello Everyone,
As I write this I am still in Peru. Later today I will begin the long journey home but I will still be traveling tomorrow morning when I would normally send out the daily devotional. That being the case, I’m sending tomorrow’s to you today.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “A life lived well”
Our Bible verse for today: “Therefore, dear friends, since you know this in advance, be on your guard, so that you are not led away by the error of lawless people and fall from your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.” 2 Peter 3:17-18 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Have a plan for spiritual growth”
In his book “The Doctrine of Salvation”, Dr. James Robinson offers some thoughts about how it is that our spiritual growth in this lifetime directly affects our capacity for appreciating heaven for all eternity. To paraphrase an illustration he used, imagine that in this lifetime a person develops the spiritual maturity of a fifty gallon drum. In heaven that person is filled to overflowing with all the good things of heaven, enjoying them to their absolute maximum capacity. Another person developed the spiritual maturity of a thimble. In heaven that person too will be filled to overflowing, but their capacity for taking-in and enjoying heaven is vastly different from that of the first person- both of them fully enjoying heaven to their fullest capacity – just vastly different capacities.
That thought is biblically based and it is expressed in the Bible using a variety of examples including rewards, positions of authority, stature, the storing up of treasure in heaven, and more. The point is that how much we mature spiritually in this lifetime directly affects our nature and stature in eternity.
That being the case, what could be more important for a follower of Jesus in this lifetime than to do the things necessary to be growing spiritually? Certainly that would have to be one of the most important uses of our time now. Therefore as we continue to think about how we’re going to use our time in 2017, the changes we will make, the goals and objectives we will focus on achieving, the new habits we wish to form, spiritual growth must be high on our list of priorities.
The activities that help to facilitate spiritual growth are collectively known as “spiritual disciplines” and include things like prayer, daily Bible study, full participation in the life of a good church, involvement in ministry activities, and more. One of the most complete and easy-to-follow resources I know of for helping Christians to understand and implement the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life is Richard Foster’s classic work “The Celebration of Discipline”. In that book Foster identifies what he considers to be the thirteen most important practices a Christian could incorporate into his or her life to place themselves in a position before God, whereby God can have full access to their whole life.
I want to encourage you this morning to actually develop a plan for your spiritual growth in 2017. Ultimately it’s the work of the Holy Spirit in your life which brings about spiritual growth. You cannot do it by your own will or in your own power. But there are things each of us has to do in order to cooperate with the work of the Spirit in our lives. It’s up to us to engage in the practices which place us in a position before God where we are fully open to Him and surrendered to His will. The basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life accomplish that.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 