Month: May 2016

Am I Trying Too Much Or Too Little To Be Christlike?

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PURPOSE: The purpose of this post is to help you get into the right level of cooperation with the Holy Spirit. It is to help you be aware of how you are exercising your willpower to become more Christlike. One question I ask myself fairly regularly is whether I am trying to hard to grow spiritually or whether I am not trying hard enough. In other words, am I doing my part according to scripture? Am I crowding out the Spirit by trying to do too much on my own, or on the other hand, am I not activating my will and thus expecting God to change me without my cooperation? Am I erring on one side or the other: too willful or not willful enough? I have erred on both sides in my life, and I still have to adjust regularly. This is an important question because it can Continue Reading →

Universalism and Buddhism: What Does Christianity Say?

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  This post will help you talk to any of your reincarnation and/or Buddhist/Zen friends about Christianity. It will help you explain how Christianity goes farther and higher in a friendly way. Universalism is a popular idea today. There are different versions of it but the general idea is that God will save everyone eventually. Of course this is an attractive idea; who doesn’t want everyone to be saved? Even scripture says that God is “not wishing that any should perish” (II Peter 3:9). But scripture also says in many places that God will send some people to punishment after He judges them for their destructive, unloving lives. We won’t look at all the verses on that because the purpose of this post is to look at why God takes that view. One of the best ways to understand Christianity is to compare it to other religions. This will help Continue Reading →

Why Do Christians Have Dry Times or Dark Nights?

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The last two posts looked at stages of growth, both repeating and non-repeating. One of the stages we mentioned was dark nights, which is the topic of this post. This may apply to you or it might help you guide someone else through a dark time, so this should equip you to be a better servant for the Body of Christ. Most Christians go through one or more periods in their life when God seems absent. We use different terms for this such as dryness, dark night, desolation, desert time, or wilderness time. Even great Christians in history we admire go through such times. For example, Martin Luther, C.S. Lewis, Mother Teresa, and Oswald Chambers. Bruce Demarest mentions the last three in his book Seasons of the Soul, which I highly recommend, beginning on p. 84. He also discusses desolation in general which is very helpful. (There is a link to Continue Reading →

What Spiritual Life Stage Are You In?

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In the last post we looked at the benefits of understanding stages of spiritual growth as well as two repeating patterns. In this post we look at two popular models of growth. The second one is an expansion of the first. These models are non-repeating models of growth. This means they cover the entire lifetime of a believer and do not repeat. These models are part of spiritual theology, or the theology of sanctification. They are based on what the writers saw in scripture and in their experience so they are attempts to do biblical spiritual theology. As you read through this it will help to ask yourself how it applies to your life. What stage do you most identify with? Do you see a flow to your spiritual growth that is reflected in one of these models? What do you think you need to focus on next in order Continue Reading →