Up Early with the Bats

Once again my wife Beverly talked in her sleep. It was at 2:10 am and it woke me up. Clock was blinking so I got up to check on the security monitors. A couple of backups were off, so I reset them and watched an outdoor critter. It was… a errrr pigmie, (well you get the idea) bat slamming down moths.I did go back to sleep and woke up at 4:15 am (for those of you who do not know military time that is also 0415 hours).

I am studying Romans 8:11-14 on the indwelling Holy Spirit.

The individuals at the church at Rome were not growing spiritually like Paul would like and in verse 11 he reminds them who indwells them. The spirit or one should say God, Himself. He reminds them that life, all life comes from Him. Verses 12-13 let us know living by the flesh causes death while living by the spirit gives us life and living by the spirit cause us to reject the deeds of our own flesh. Jesus did tell us in John 10:10 that a thief comes to steal, kill and destroy whereas He comes to give us not just life, but abundant life. Wow,

I ask myself, “Have I arrived at total abundant life?”

Not yet, but God is not finished with me and his spirit still empowers me.

Verse 14, we are reminded that we are sons and daughters of the King (God) and of His Kingdom. He is saying wake up Linebarger and realize that you are son, a Prince, so act like one by using your spiritual gifts and discernment. What are those spiritual growth markers?

I use to think that maybe I would be growing spiritually if I had more spiritual gifts. Then in the book of Corinthians I realized that the Church there had all the gifts, but were remaining babies. In the Greek, translation tells me that the babies he is talking about are still on the level of dirtying their diapers. Strange, yet they had all the gifts. Hmmmmm!

So one of the best measures for growth I found was in Galatians 5:22,23. Look at the fruits of the Spirit: (1). love, (2). joy, (3). peace, long suffering (patience), (4). kindness, (5). goodness, (6). faithfulness, (7). gentleness, and (8). self control. One will find that babes that Paul speaks about in I Corinthians still needing bottle feeding and diaper changes. Their actions related to flesh more than the spiritual.

Make a scale of 1-10 for each of these spiritual fruits (measures) and ask several Christian friends to rate you on these eight. One being the least growth and the ten rating the highest.Tell them to be real and to not spare your feelings. Rate yourself first however and then compare what you write down to what they write down. THIS IS ESPECIALLY GOOD FOR HUSBANDS AND WIVES TO DO.

May all of us grow spiritually towards maturity.

This entry was posted on August 27, 2009 at 5:51 am and is filed under Spiritual Growth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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