"Spiritual Breathing" from Bill Bright
Posted by Randy | Labels: Bill Bright, Campus Crusade, Discipleship, Holy Spirit, Spiritual Breathing, Spiritual Disciplines | 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:
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.
- 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.
- 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!
