Surely you didn’t think that I would actually suggest you gain a bunch of weight as a goal for 2012! I am writing about growing larger in a spiritual sense. Every Christian should have a burning desire to grow larger, deeper, purer, higher than ever before in their walk with the Lord. While the desire may be there, the ability to carry it out is another story. There is this thing called “finding the time” that keeps slipping away. How fast do your days go? Does it seem that the weeks and months just fly by? Yet, we must carve out each day, some time to spend with God, our Father, and Jesus, our Savior and the Holy Spirit, our comforter. There is another problem to growing in our faith. It is our personalities. It is who we are as a person. On the one hand, there are a small minority of people who are driven and laziness isn’t in their vocabulary. However, this extreme drive can also be detrimental. Often times these people are perfectionist, workaholics, or obsessive/compulsive people who do things out of a need to feel adequate and accepted. This causes you to do your bible study not out of a deep abiding love for Christ, but just one more item to check off on your daily push to do every thing just right. Your Bible study then becomes a routine and a ritual, rather than life-changing. You find acceptance of yourself by doing things on time and just right. This helps your self-esteem and makes you feel better about yourself. Performing task to make yourself more acceptable is impossible when it comes to God. If you have Christ in your heart, you cannot be anymore acceptable than you already are. No completion of tasks can change that fact. God loves and accepts you forever in Christ. Then there is a majority of humans that fall into the lazy category. None of us like to think of ourselves as lazy, but it is a common human condition. When you combine this with a lack of burning passion for the things of Christ; you get people who don’t truly grow in faith. We like the pleasures of the world. We like to relax when we are not at work or doing chores. I’m just not motivated like I should be. If these people do grow, it is at a snail’s pace. How could you explode in spiritual growth in 2012?
- Repent of your tendency towards laziness or obsessive drive. Ask God to give you a burning desire from the Holy Spirit to “want” to pray and study His word. Literally ask for this specifically in prayer. But have the “desire” be from Him, and not of your flesh.
- Make it a habit. Once you get into the habit of doing a bible study and personal prayer time; it becomes part of your daily routine. A daily routine doesn’t have to be uninspiring. It just makes it easier to accomplish. We humans are creatures of habit. When we get ready in the morning, or at night or during the day,if we don’t make God part of our habit; then the whole day goes by and you wake up the next day and say, “ oh man I didn’t do my Bible study.” Doing a prolonged time of prayer, seeking God’s face, should be as common as eating breakfast, combing your hair, or drinking your favorite beverage when you get up. Once it becomes a habit, it then becomes strange when you don’t do it. A huge step towards growing is to make prayer and Bible study a habit.
- Be realistic. I hear people all the time tell me they are going to start setting their alarm an hour earlier, and get up in the wee hours of the morning for their personal growth time. 99% of the time, this will never last. You have to create this habit of devotion time that is reasonable and realistic with your life style. There are some people who actually wake up at 5:00 a.m. and can do a quiet time before anyone else in the house gets up. If that is your personality bend, “a morning person,” then go for it. But if you like to linger when the alarm goes off, don’t attempt to do spiritual growth at an hour that is not your cup of tea. You will only grit your teeth for a month or two and then get out of the habit. Carve out a time and place that works for you and stick to it. If you have kids, then they need to be made to understand that you are not to be disturbed during this time. Invariably there may be an interruption with small kids, and just go with it. But it shouldn’t be that you are always interrupted by them, and don’t get to do it. It is awesome for them to learn that you respect your time alone with God. It teaches them a valuable lesson for their own future spiritual growth.
- Refuse to feel guilty if you miss a day. It happens. You don’t skip a day without prayer. I mean you may just miss occasionally your private time. It’s okay. Just quickly re-establish the habit.
- If you can’t do this consistently, check your heart. You may have a heart problem. Our King not only commands us to do this, but how could you stand in His presence and not want to do this? If nothing else, let Jesus do heart surgery on you in 2012.
Afterall, He is the great physician.
