Showing posts with label Discipleship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Discipleship. Show all posts

"Spiritual Breathing" from Bill Bright

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , | Posted On Sunday, November 10, 2013 at 6:48 AM

In my message on Sunday, November 10, I talked about the importance of the Holy Spirit in helping us grow as disciples. In fact, we cannot grow with the Holy Spirit - He brings the growth.
2 Corinthians 3:18 (NLT): “…the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.” (emphasis added)

The Holy Spirit works with us as train ourselves spiritually through spiritual disciplines, but the Holy Spirit takes it one step further, acting as our personal spiritual trainer all throughout our day, helping us turn everything we do and experience into an opportunity for Him to guide us and empower us.

Bill Bright, who founded Campus Crusade, wrote of a spiritual exercise that offers us one way to do this throughout our day. He called it "Spiritual Breathing," and below is an excerpt from Campus 
Crusade's website about Spiritual Breathing:

Spiritual Breathing
by Bill Bright

By faith you can continue to experience God's love and forgiveness.

If you become aware of an area of your life (an attitude or an action) that is displeasing to the Lord, even though you are walking with Him and sincerely desiring to serve Him, simply thank God that He has forgiven your sins - past, present and future - on the basis of Christ's death on the cross. Claim His love and forgiveness by faith and continue to have fellowship with Him.

If you retake the throne of your life through sin – a definite act of disobedience – breathe spiritually.

Spiritual breathing (exhaling the impure and inhaling the pure) is an exercise in faith that enables you to continue to experience God's love and forgiveness.

  1. Exhale – confess your sin – agree with God concerning your sin and thank Him for His forgiveness of it, according to 1 John 1:9 and Hebrews 10:1-25. Confession involves repentance – a change in attitude and action.
  2. Inhale – surrender the control of your life to Christ, and appropriate (receive) the fullness of the Holy Spirit by faith. Trust that He now directs and empowers you; according to the command of Ephesians 5:18, and the promise of 1 John 5:14, 15.

(Adapted from Have You Made the Wonderful Discovery of the Spirit-Filled Life? by Dr. Bill Bright, co-founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. © Campus Crusade for Christ. All rights reserved. http://www.cru.org/training-and-growth/classics/the-spirit-filled-life/)


Give it a try and see if the Holy Spirit doesn't work with you all through your day!

Loving + Learning = Living!

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , | Posted On Tuesday, December 6, 2011 at 8:15 PM

This morning I was reading my Life Journal reading plan reading - Philippians. This may be my favorite book of the entire Bible. It's full of joy! But it also tells us some incredible things about Jesus Christ. In fact, I'll be focusing on some of this in Philippians 2 in my Sunday messages on the Incarnation this month.


But this morning I found something else that really caught my attention. I would usually journal this in my Life Journal, but I felt this was something I wanted to write out and share.


"I pray that your love will overflow more and more, and you will keep on growing in knowledge and understanding. For I want you to understand what really matters, so that you may live pure and blameless lives until the day of Christ's return." (Philippians 1:9-10 NLT)


Vs. 10 caught my attention first - Paul wants us to understand what really matters. Isn't that what we all want, one way or another? And how do we discover that? Paul tells us in the previous verse/sentence. He points to two things: (1) overflowing love, and (2) growing in knowledge and understanding. It's learning and loving, and loving and learning - back and forth. It's not one or the other - both are the key to living! Loving + Learning = Living!


Love grows out of increasing knowledge and understanding of who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Love grows out of realizing God has loved us unconditionally and sacrificially through Jesus. And as I love more, I want to know even more about Jesus and our Heavenly Father. It's back and forth - loving and learning. 


To me this becomes a picture of what the maturing follower of Christ looks like - both loving and learning. They go hand-in-hand. And the outcome is a life worth living, a life that makes a difference, a life that fulfills God's purpose for him or her. 


Too often in my life I have drifted to one extreme or another. Learning for learning's sake, and developing a faith life that really doesn't make much difference in anyone else's life. In fact, it becomes a very self-serving life. Or serving others, because we're supposed to love our neighbors, but not really understanding why. After a while, I found it became pretty senseless. Doing good so others would notice and in some small way applaud. And once again it became pretty self-serving.


I have been out on both extremes, and neither was very satisfying. What I see here from Paul is that to live the way we were created to live, to live "pure and blameless lives," requires loving and learning. It's the secret to living. Living for the sake of others, because we've spent time learning about Christ and his love for us. It sounds simple, yet at least in my life it's a continual struggle to get the right balance. We really need the Holy Spirit's help on this. I hope and pray you've been doing better than I have - it's definitely worth it!


Loving + Learning = Living!

10 Signs Your Christianity Has Become Too Comfortable

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , | Posted On Thursday, August 18, 2011 at 5:06 PM

I have to confess that all too often in my Christian journey I've become too comfortable. I've become complacent. I've allowed my Christianity to become convenient, living it only when it's easy or doesn't cost me anything.


Unfortunately for me (and maybe you), this isn't what Jesus teaches us. He tells us we are bought for a price, that our lives are not our own, and that we are to serve others and love our neighbors more than we are to make our Christian journey easy or convenient. 


This has been on my mind a lot lately, and my current sermon series, "Every ONE Matters," really digs deeper into this and the vision I believe God has for our church. I came across the following list from Brian Dodd (original article here) and decided to share it with you. See if any of these apply to you - too often they do to me!



10 Signs Your Christianity Has Become Too Comfortable

  1. You are not attending church with a high level of expectancy.
  2. You no longer seem to be concerned about the spiritual condition of neighbors, family members, or your co-workers.
  3. You haven’t had a spiritual conversation with a non-Christian in a long time.
  4. The Bible seems like a history book.  It’s lifeless to you.
  5. Your happiness on Sunday mornings is more important than what it takes to reach the unchurched.  As long as you get your parking spot, your seat, and hear the music you like, everything’s fine.
  6. The plight of the poor doesn’t concern you.
  7. Pictures of overseas suffering do not move you to action.
  8. You do not give your financial resources sacrificially.
  9. Your prayers don’t seem to be making it past the ceiling.
  10. It doesn’t even dawn on you that God could do something incredibly radical in your life at any moment today.  It’s not even on your radar.


I guess the bigger question, though, is that if you find yourself in this list, what are you doing to become less comfortable? What are doing to risk more for Jesus? It's a question I want to ask myself each day. I hope you will, too!

Challenges of Following Jesus

Posted by Randy | Labels: , , , , , , , | Posted On Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Luke's chapter 19 is one of those chapters that is just full of great and important stuff. But, as I dug into this chapter, I discovered a common theme of following Jesus that speaks to me today.

First is the story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector. Tax collectors were known for cheating people, but the Roman government backed them, so Jews hated them. Zacchaeus encounters Jesus, and Jesus invites himself over to Zacchaeus' home. The people complained, "…'(Jesus) has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,'…" (vs. 7). Yet, Jesus' love and acceptance led Zacchaeus to commit his life to Christ. He gave away half his wealth and gave back to those he cheated four times what he had taken. And at this point Jesus makes very clear that in spite of what others may think or say, this is exactly why he came: "'For the Son of Man (Jesus) came to seek and save those who are lost.'" (vs. 10) In this brief verse, Jesus tells us his purpose for coming, and he gives a clear picture of our purpose, too, for those those of us who are committed to following him. As his followers, as the body of Christ, we, too, are here to seek and save those who are lost, who are disconnected from God. We're his hands and his feet and his voice in the world today. But, if we aren't reaching out to those who are lost, we've stopped following Jesus.

The second story is often called the Parable of the Talents as the Gospel of Matthew tells it. Here Luke tells us a slightly different version, but the message is much the same. The Master entrusts to his servants varying amounts of resources and tell them to invest it while he's gone. When the Master returns, one servant returns to his Master ten times what he started with. A second servant returns five times what he started with. In both cases the Masters rewards them by making them governors over cities. The third servant brings back only the original amount - he's done nothing with what his Master entrusted to him. The Master calls him a "wicked servant," and takes away even what he had. Jesus shows us that no matter how much he gives us - talents, abilities, resources, etc. - if we're following him, he expects us to use wisely that which he has entrusted to us for the purpose of advancing his kingdom. When we do nothing with what's been entrusted to us, we lose even what we had. But, when we do use what he has entrusted to us, he provides even more. There's a basic principle of management or stewardship here. As a follower of Christ, am I being faithful with that which God has entrusted to me? It's important, because some day I'm going to have to give an accounting, and if I haven't been faithful, I'm going to discover that I wasn't following Jesus and I'll end up somewhere else.

Next, we see the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem on what is traditionally called Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter. It's a great day of praise and celebration, but Jesus knows that many of the very people who are singing his praises on Sunday will be calling out for his crucifixion on Friday. Ultimately, talk is cheap. True faith is not demonstrated by what we say but by what we do. Talking the talk means nothing if we don't also walk the talk. That's a big challenge for all of us. Following Christ means following Christ. It means walking in his steps, even when it's uncomfortable or just plain hard. Until we're willing to follow wherever he leads us, even to the cross, our talk is cheap. I write this for myself, because I know I struggle here at times. I am learning that it is precisely when it's hard that following Christ both means the most and also grows me the most. That's not necessarily what I want to hear, but that's the reality.

In a quick final story in this chapter Jesus clears the Temple of thieves and money changers. Sometimes, following Jesus means confronting the wrongs and injustices of this world. That's seldom comfortable, but it's what Jesus did.

Very different stories, but in each one I learn more about what it means to follow Jesus. All these stories show that following Jesus isn't easy - in fact, it's a real challenge at times. But, until I'm walking in his footsteps, I'm not really following him, and I won't get to where he wants me to be. It's worth asking ourselves, "Who's footsteps am I walking in?"
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