Led by the Spirit (Toward Spiritual Maturity: Growing Up in God, Chapter 4)

When a need arose for the Grecian widows to be cared for, the apostles said they could not do it because they had to give themselves to the ministry of the Word of God and prayer Acts 6: These two always go together.

• 1 Samuel 2:26?
• Top 7 Bible Verses About Spiritual Maturity!
• .
• Growing Up, Spiritually.
• Mystery Mob and the Man Eating Tiger.

Not only should the Word of God inspire and inform our prayer, believers should also consistently pray Scripture. When Christ was dying on the cross for our sins, he prayed two scriptural prayers: While Christ was being murdered on the cross, Scripture not only prompted his prayer— it was his prayer.

How do you use Scripture in your prayer life? While praying, Paul was kneeling. The normal way for Jews to pray was standing up cf. This is how our prayers should be. I fast twice a week. His prayer was prideful and selfish. Christ warns the disciples not to pray loud and long in order to be seen by others Matt 6: In contrast, Christ tells the disciples to go into their closet and pray privately—to be seen only by God. In fact, we probably get a picture of this with the issue of tongues at the church in Corinth.

Many commentators believe that when Paul says a person who prays in a tongue edifies himself and he who prophesies edifies others 1 Cor These people are glorifying themselves instead of thinking about the others who were present. However, Paul commands that everything in church worship be done for the edification of others 1 Cor Many Christians are like that—their prayers are meant to be seen and heard by others rather than God. Be careful of prideful prayer. When we pray, we must remember that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble James 4: Only those who pray with humility receive grace.

He not only recognizes God as his own Father, but also as the Father of all believers in heaven and on earth. The prayer is not individual but familial, as it considers other family members God cares for. When praying, we must remember that we are part of a family. We must constantly remember others in our prayers. It has been said that if a billionaire donates ten dollars, he gives out of his riches, but if he donates one million, he gives according to his riches. Since the Lord is infinitely rich in glory, let the saints get ready for a deluge!

Why should we ask so little of so great a King? Thou art coming to a King, Large petitions with thee bring; For His grace and power are such, None can ever ask too much. When praying for ourselves or others, we should pray great petitions. We should pray for God to abundantly supply needs, to greatly use others for his kingdom, etc. What are some other practical principles concerning prayer? What disciplines have you found helpful in your prayer life? Most Christians live without this power, and therefore live ineffective lives.

How can we allow the Spirit to strengthen us? This is clear from the context of Paul praying for believers to be strengthened. Christ fasted and prayed for forty days, and left the wilderness empowered by the Holy Spirit Lk 4: After they prayed, the building was shaken and they all left filled with the Spirit of God. The Spirit empowers believers when they pray. If we are to be empowered by the Spirit, we must live in the Word of God. There is a story in the Old Testament about Jehoshaphat, the king of the Judah, fighting a battle against a nation through worship.

After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the LORD and to praise him for the splendor of his holiness as they went out at the head of the army, saying: Similarly, when Elisha was approached by Jehoshaphat and Ahab about whether to go to war against another nation, he asked for a harpist. The harpist played, and the Spirit of God came upon Elisha to prophecy 2 Kings 3: God inhabits the praises of his people Psalm And do not quench the Spirit.

However, when we give thanks and praise to God, he empowers our inner being. This means the spiritual part of man where God dwells and works. The inner man of the lost sinner is dead Eph. The inner man can see Ps. He also must be cleansed Ps. The outer man is perishing, but the inner man can be renewed spiritually in spite of outward physical decay 2 Cor. It is this inner power that makes him succeed. If our inner being is weak, we will not desire the things of God.

In fact, we will find that we desire worldly things more than the things of God. Paul says that when a believer is strengthened in his inner being, Christ dwells in his heart through faith Ephesians 3: What does this mean? However, our position is often different from our practice. They practiced sexual immorality chapters 5 and 6 , were suing one another chapter 6 , and abusing spiritual gifts like tongues chapter 14 , but they were still saints—set apart by God and indwelled by him 1 Cor 6: When we are not empowered by the Spirit of God, we live as slaves of sin, instead of as free men cf.

We talk and walk like the world, even though we are not of the world. In a life like that, Christ can never feel at home. Is Christ at home in your heart? Or is he like a visitor?

The Writing of Vikki Kestell

Is he comfortable with your entertainment and how you spend your free time? Is he comfortable with your thoughts and friendships? Paul says this to the Corinthians:. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. A life empowered by the Spirit is one that is totally dependent upon God—a life of faith. He does not want to grieve the Holy Spirit. As a person matures in Christ—living more by faith than in the flesh—he is empowered by the Spirit of God in the inner being.

This results in a life where Christ is at home. Is Christ at home in your life? Or is he like an unhappy visitor—uncomfortable and constantly grieved? How do you think Christ feels about your life? Consider your thoughts, words, friendships, hobbies, work, etc. How can you make him more at home? The root is where a tree or plant gets both its nourishment and its stability. Also, the foundation of a building is the most important part of a structure.

If the foundation is off, one cannot continue to build. In my second building program, we had to spend several thousand dollars taking soil tests because we were building over an old lake bed. For weeks, the men were laying out and pouring the footings. Without a root and foundation of love, a believer cannot grow spiritually, for it is the springboard for spiritual growth. With that said, although Paul does not share who the believer should love, he no doubt refers to love for both God and others cf.

Our sinful nature is identified by self-love and love for the things of the world—immature believers are often still identified by these loves. Instead of serving others, they are consumed with themselves. However, when believers start to mature, they start being identified by love for God and others. As they continue to grow, we see more and more acts of love. He probably means that his love for Christ compelled him to witness and serve others.

How can believers build a strong foundation for their spiritual lives by growing in love? Paul is referring to agape love, which is not primarily an emotional love; it is an act of the will. A believer might not feel pleasant emotions about his enemy, but he can act in love towards him because God commands it. Therefore, we grow in love by choosing to selflessly love those around us.

Even our love for God is an act of the will. He essentially makes love and obedience synonymous.

We grow in love by choosing, as an act of the will, to love God and others. Is there a specific person or group of people that God is calling you to show love towards? How is God calling you to grow through practicing acts of love for him and others? And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge Ephesians 3: Understanding how much someone loves us is very powerful.

This is why many of the young men and women in gangs, prison, and drug, alcohol, and sexual addiction come from homes missing one or both parents. For this reason, Satan works very hard to make believers doubt the love of God. When Satan attacked Eve, he tempted her to believe that God was keeping the best from her. When Satan tempted Job, he tried to get Job to curse God to his face.

Both temptations were essentially aimed at making one doubt the love of God. In fact, such doubting can lead to all types of sin and destruction, as it did with Eve. However, as he prays for them to comprehend and experience it, he introduces a paradox. This love is impossible to know fully, but we must continually seek to know it nevertheless. It seems that in heaven, when we are made perfect, we will then be able to fully comprehend it. Paul says this in 1 Corinthians Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. Before we consider the dimensions themselves, let us notice the expression, with all the saints.

The subject is so great that no one believer can possibly grasp more than a small fraction of it. So there is need to study, discuss, and share with others. The Holy Spirit can use the combined meditations of a group of exercised believers to throw a flood of additional light on the Scriptures. The isolated Christian can indeed know something of the love of Jesus. But his grasp of it is bound to be limited by his limited experience. It needs the whole people of God to understand the whole love of God, all the saints together, Jews and Gentiles, men and women, young and old, black and white, with all their varied backgrounds and experiences.

The width is described in 2: The mystery embraces both these segments of humanity. The length extends from eternity to eternity. As to the past, believers were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world 1: As to the future, eternity will be a perpetual unfolding of the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus 2: The depth is vividly portrayed in 2: We were sunk in a pit of unspeakable sin and degradation. Christ came to this jungle of filth and corruption in order to die in our behalf. A number of years ago, a denominational minister was filled with the Holy Ghost and spoke with other tongues.

I knew of no greater soul-winner than this man. He could get people saved when no one else could. It seemed to me that you could stand up the 12 best preachers in America and let them all preach and give an altar call. Then you could have this man preach to the same crowd, and he would get more saved than any of them did—even after they all had the first shot at it! That was his ministry.

But this man got to reading after some false teaching. He finally accepted some false doctrine and got into a ditch. But we must examine these things in light of the Word. No one is going to be lost—everyone is going to be saved, even the devil. And this man quit preaching to the lost. I know some Pentecostal people who were tremendous soul-winners, getting people saved and filled with the Holy Ghost.

But they got taken up with certain doctrines. No, God is not doing a different thing. They were just off their rocker! God is still concerned about saving people. Some things are poisonous. But too many times, Christian people will feed on everything in the world except the right thing, and they become poisoned.

2 Peter 3:18

Then they lead disciples off after themselves. If the Spirit of God is in it, He is concerned about there being unity. The Spirit of love never divides. I went into a Christian home and saw some books lying on the living room table, which I knew were poisonous. They were religious books, but they were poisonous.

I purposely worked the conversation around to the books, picking one up and saying something about it. In the early days of my Christianity, I had happened to get hold of some of these same books and had detected immediately the poison on them. So for this man whose home I was visiting, I turned to some particular pages and began reading certain passages to him.

I looked some of them up, and those verses are in the Bible. You would have to put the poison into a good piece of meat to get the animal to bite. In the same way, the devil knows how to give you some good Scripture to get you to eat, but he will also put a little poison in it.

Top 7 Bible Verses About Spiritual Maturity

Be careful when you read, no matter who wrote it. I held a meeting for a very well-educated Full Gospel minister, a doctor of divinity. Until that time, I had never seen a larger library than his.

He had a large office with an adjoining room equally as large as his office. And on every wall of both these rooms, from ceiling to floor, he had books. Being a bookworm myself, I was interested in looking his library over, and I read some of his books during my three-week stay.

They hinder my faith and keep me from believing God fully to this day. When I start reading something that takes faith out of me instead of putting faith in me, I have enough sense to lay it down right then! Be careful what you feed on. We must be careful what we allow into our eyes and ears. What we see, read, and hear can affect our thoughts, our faith, and our spiritual growth.

This commitment is ongoing, and we are constantly striving to achieve technologically feasible levels of accessibility. If you encounter difficulty with the functionality of our site, please contact us.