Day 23 ~ The Purpose Driven Life ~ How We Grow
Light the Essence of Eternal Spiritual Growth
Are you inflicted with an all encompassing degenerate disease?
There is an inescapable truth about life. Nothing ever stands still. We cannot stop time. It simply marches on ticking away second by second.
Within the darkness of this world everything is in decay. It has even been found that the DNA of mankind is actually in decay. (Science discovers our genome in decay – Mankind is on the path to extinction)
Man is in perpetual search of trying to stop his body from ageing or finding a way to rollback the degradation of his physical attributes. That is the natural darkness of this world that slowly envelops us.
Spending time with God invigorates our spirit. Most amazingly growth of our spiritual life runs contrary to the degrading effects of this world. When faith turns into absolute truth, administered by the hand of God, the boundaries of light carried into darkness are continually pressed back and our spirit is in continual growth, all decline of the spirit is reversed.
“We are gifted with enlightenment from Christ. You are set to display life’s excellence cloaked in the vestiges of Christ. Explore and live the adventure of faith!
Imagine the extreme dedication and focus of a conductor of music; how he would diligently acquaint himself with every individual voice in the choir, as well as the contribution of every specific instrument, to follow the precise sound represented in every single note in order to give maximum credit to the original composition. This is exactly what it means to exhibit the divine character. You are the choir conductor of your own life. Familiarise yourselves with every ingredient that faith unfolds! See there how elevated you are, and from within this position (of your co-seatedness in Christ), enlightened perspective will dawn within you.” 2 Peter 1:5 Para . Adapted from the Mirror Bible.
Lighting the flame of our spirit by sparking it with Jesus Christ grows our spirit against the march of time. By not being in Christ our spirit is going to be in step with the decline imposed by this world. If we have not found the light, and age in accordance with the imposed life in the natural world, our hearts harden and our minds become cynical because of the lack of hope. That is true darkness.
Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.” John 8:12b (BSB)
We cannot grow or move on in a relationship without spending time on that relationship. This is also very true about our relationship with God. What of our time do we allocate to that relationship? Is it our most precious time? Is it all the time? Do we slip away to have time with God? The relationship we have with Him will be reflected in the type of time and the amount of time that we are in His presence, and in the presence of His saints.
This is also true about all our relationships. Any and all relationships are either growing or in decline. They cannot and will not stand still. The only variable in the growth or decline of relationships is the rate at which it is happening, The rate at which the relationship grows or declines is determined by the time spent or not spent on the relationship. Our lives are very much about which relationships we relish, it is those relationships we will allocate our dearest resource to, namely time.
We are all inflicted with a degenerate disease but at least we who are in Christ know that our spirit is secure and the darkness will not overcome it. (John 1:5)
Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” John 6:37 (ESV)
More reading on this day can be found here ; http://purposedriven.com/day23/