Intentional Spiritual Growth Through Grace and Discipline

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Within the bookends of clock time, God appoints times for our growth and development, and this is always done with grace, love, and wisdom. Nothing ever happens to us where God's work is not a work of grace and love and wisdom, always. That's comforting. [01:10:48] (28 seconds)  #GraceInGodsTiming

When clock time and God's appointed time merge, what is the life lesson we're to learn? Every once in a while, stop and say, God, what are you trying to teach me here? [01:11:26] (16 seconds)  #PauseAndReflect

Although God did not will it into existence, his will was involved in that God had an expectation of Paul in how Paul would respond to the situation. Listen to what he said to Paul after he said no to Paul's request to remove it. 2 Corinthians 12, 9 says, Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. That, my friends, helps. [01:17:51] (41 seconds)  #StrengthInWeakness

Discipline, capital D. Be disciplined physically. Have a routine to eat well, sleep well, exercise well. Discipline emotionally. You must properly process the joys and sorrows of life and ministry. Discipline spiritually. You must study the Bible, learn to pray, obey God, and self-protect, I said to him. That summarizes my philosophy of everything I do. That there's three aspects of my life and your life that we need to be very disciplined about. What takes place with our bodies, what takes place emotionally, and what takes place spiritually. [01:35:44] (67 seconds)  #DisciplineInBodyMindSpirit

``Without routine, no one can live well. To be successful, it takes structure and systems and habits and disciplines. Spiritual growth takes regular Bible reading and Bible study. Habitual prayer, consistent church attendance, and constant learning. And friends, honestly, there's no other way. There's no other way to spiritually grow than to do what I'm saying that we should be doing right now. This is how it works. [01:37:07] (44 seconds)  #RoutineIsSpiritualFoundation

Like our trailer harmful things can seep into our lives. Amen? There are often exterior signs that something's wrong. On the trailer it was little bits of corrosion on the siding that you wouldn't really see if you didn't take time to look at it. For us it could be negativity, irritability, a bad attitude, a change of behavior or spiritually it could be pulling back from church, not worshipping, not reading the Bible, not spending time in prayer. Just little things that add up over time. These are signs, signs that something's wrong and there's a problem that needs attention and corrected. [01:42:35] (63 seconds)  #SignsOfSpiritualDecay

Upon inspection what would we find? A crack in your spiritual home? Something harmful to your overall good? Something causing or would cause damage to your spirituality? In all honesty, on all honesty do you need repair? If you don't, great, but if you do you need to take the initiative like I did to call the repairman, call God, call upon him, there's something going wrong here I need your help or in addition call someone who can help you or if you can in some ways take the initiative and help yourself. The reason is if you don't get it fixed destruction lies ahead guaranteed trust me I've been around the block a few times I've seen it and what I'm saying is true. [01:43:43] (87 seconds)  #RepairYourSpiritualHome

If you have a structure in your life to help yourself grow spiritually it will reduce your stress, it will stabilize you in difficult times, it will improve your productivity and efficiency, enhance your mental health and increase your sense of control and empowerment in life. Habits, routines and disciplines will increase your ability to get things done, foster good habits, promote meaningful social relationships and for children it will support their development and best of all it will help us each of us reach new heights spiritually and friend that's a good deal that's a good deal. [01:45:22] (61 seconds)  #StructureBringsStability

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