In the Word
In the Word
In the WordIn the WordIn the Word
Grow with God ~ Through Experience
We each put the pieces together differently
Our primary purpose
NKJV Matthew 22:37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’"
Are we giving our 'all' to God? To love God requires the humbling of ourselves. We can rely more upon God's ways and less upon our own. Seeking God's will can often involve letting go of our own ideas and methods. When God's way says to do one thing, and our way says to do another, we will need to surrender our way to try a new Godly way and see what happens. Like any exploration it will be best to do it a few times and learn from the experiences. It's good to remind ourselves this exploration is to better understand a deeper spiritual truth from the Bible. The Bible is a book many believe is the key to most amazing things ever created. So it can be worth the time, struggle, and effort. That is, for those who believe.
The Bible defines God as Love, Peace, Patience, Mercy, Forgiveness, Justice, Truth, and Compassion. There are more descriptions, but these seem to be central to God's Righteousness, Goodness, and Grace. Choosing God's ways and principles each day, little by little, we can grow closer with God. We can seek first aligning our thoughts, attitudes, and actions to be with God.
We all have made choices in the past based on self or the world's ideas. Such past choices repeated over time can become habits which we can easily become reliant upon for our future choices. Our old choices can become the basis for our new ones which can set us up for an endless repetitive cycle. We can break the cycle by taking new action within our minds and hearts to do God's will instead of our own. Yet, breaking cycles are not easy. Working together with others for encouragement, support, brainstorming, and hope can help.
We can choose God in our thoughts, attitudes, and actions?
Read Deuteronomy 30:11-20, Ezekiel 18, and John 15 (note vs. 6-7)
See how these relate to each other
We can abide in God.
Each day we can choose to grow with God, by setting our hearts and minds to be with God. We can think how to have compassion with others, speak truthfully, practice patience, forgive, have mercy, and grow in peace. As we begin this journey it is completely normal to feel awkward, different, and confused. We will be thinking and acting differently in ways we don't quite understand. Yet this is how transformation feels. The more we change, the more different we will feel. Yet the changes we are making are Godly good. To know sincere love and peace can provide us a life God intended for us.
Our own personal preferences (Cognitive Bias) can make decisions for us that can keep us from growing in God's goodness. We can fall victim to continue obeying our old ways. This is normal. The goal is to continue to see that we make some change to improve with God's character. We take some new steps within our minds, hearts, attitudes, and actions to grow with God. We will not be perfect, but we can improve. Improvement will require a commitment to the process. We will need faith in God's will, character, grace, righteousness, and goodness. We will need the kind of faith where we will be willing to give up parts ourselves, our habits, our choices, to better align them with God's.
Through self-evaluation we can discover uncomfortable truth about ourselves and gain insight how to change. We will need to see the errors in our ways. We can't correct anything if we do not see what to correct. We are not bad people trying to be good. We are misaligned people trying to improve. We can experience love that is sincere, honest, and impartial toward God's goodness. Yet we will need to do things differently which can be uncomfortable. Evaluating ourselves to ensure we are on the right path can be uncomfortable, yet necessary.
We can become more just, as God is a just God, which is to be impartial and fair, and not giving into fear about difficult truths. We can choose faith over fear. When fear is present we can go to God in prayer for strength and guidance.
We can choose God throughout each day. We can imperfectly continue to grow toward that which is perfect. We can improve our hearts, minds, attitudes, and actions. We can choose to: pray, meditate, collaborate, study, reflect, examine, purify our hearts, and cleanse our consciences. We can grow in love and peace. We can do more what the Bible says to do.
Choosing God is to make God's will our main priority. We can evaluate our thinking to see how present God's ways are within our thoughts and actions. If we are going to grow the way the Bible instructs then we will look at the Bible and learn more accurately from the Bible what it says to do. Then we will begin taking new actions toward that instruction to understand it better. We will repeat the action to see how we can improve.
There are many definitions of God in the Bible. It's important to see how all of God's character works together. We can learn how truth is improved with compassion. We can learn how justice is improved with mercy and forgiveness. We can learn how all of God's character done right will work toward love and peace. To learn we must be in the journey experiencing the intangible and invisible character of God and see how are participation of it can improve not only our minds and hearts, but also the minds and hearts of others around us.
If this is a path you are interested in walking email us today.
Progress towards perfection
NKJV Matthew 5:48 "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."
We CAN make progress!
As we practice choosing to experience grace within our minds, hearts, attitudes, and actions our Inward Authority can better align with God. We can sense God's goodness within and around us. As we search for God's love we can find it. As our hearts lean toward mercy and compassion we can sense it. As our faith grows, fear can be reduced. This process begins with actions, not feelings. In fact, our feelings may even seek to sway us away from new Godly activity. We can choose God when we feel it is uncomfortable or inconvenient. Doing what is new and unfamiliar can be confusing and it can get messy, but it really is the only way to grow. Like riding a bike we fall and some of us can get hurt. Yet we can get back up and learn through practice.
NKJV James 1:4 But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Patience and the practice of it can bring spiritual development. Practicing patience with an attitude of love can provide us opportunities to grow. We can learn God's goodness in being patient with ourselves and others. We can know the love of Christ through experiencing deeper loving thoughts, attitudes, and actions.
NKJV Ephesians 3:19 "to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
Love of God "Passes knowledge." We can learn that experiencing love can teach us far more than reading about it.
NKJV Philippians 4:7 "and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Peace of God "surpasses all understanding." We can learn how the experience of God's peace can protect us spiritually.
NKJV 2 Corinthians 3:6 "not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."
We can experience the life giving Spirit.
NIV James 1:22 "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."