Are You Making Spiritual Progress?

One of the scandals of the Christian church is how many believers are no farther along in their faith than when they first came to Christ.

Where are you? Are you making spiritual progress?

The Apostle Paul talked about his one desire: to know Christ and the power of His resurrection. He described how he pressed forward “toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14).

Do you have that desire? A.W. Tozer said many times we have all of God that we want. The problem is that many Christians do not want much of God.

Assuming that you do want to know Christ and experience the richness of His being, what can we do to make spiritual progress?

Tozer, in his book Man:The Dwelling Place of God, suggested five things to do.

First, don’t get caught up in wanting rather than doing. It’s easy to make every Sunday a day to think about thinking about God but never doing anything about it. It’s like the person who is always planning to begin a diet “Monday morning.” Unfortunately, Monday morning never comes.

Set your face like a flint toward knowing God and growing in holiness. Begin to set your life in order. You are only as holy as you want to be.

Second, put every un-Christian habit aside.  Your habits will come between you and God. You must make the decision to remove those from your life.

Third, make Christ the focus of your heart and keep Him constantly at the center of all you do. Only in Christ will you find what you really need.

Fourth, open your heart to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to fill you. Paul made this a command: “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18) When we are filled with the Spirit, we will find genuine change coming to our lives. The old will start passing away and the new life in Christ will become the dominant impulse of our lives.

Fifth, be hard on yourself and easy on others. This is about me and my closeness to God. If I judge you, I disobey Christ and I miss the close relationship with God. I will have spent my time worrying about others and neglecting my own closeness to God.

It is easy to become proud and puffed up. It is also easy to look for the speck in the eyes of others. “Carry your own cross but never lay one on the back of another” (A.W. Tozer).

It is time for us to get off the spiritual milk and go quickly to the meat of the Word.

May God bless you as you make spiritual progress.

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One Response

  1. So true.

    Perhaps what Tozer meant was not to expect others to do what you can do for yourself. So much has been lost for the Kingdom by being transferred into the hands of those who promote ungodliness as Scripture teaches. It is such a shame teachings from the Book of James does not seem to enter into Tozer’s quote as presented.

    Why would there be a command to “Love one another” given as “a New Command?” Why would there be multiple directions to be likeminded if not to show a more excellent way, a way of working and facing the evil one as One?

    The saying, “thick as thieves,” came about for a reason. Psalms 139: 19-24 David did not fight alone with just His Lord God at his side. God: unsearchable; unchanging; everlasting.

    Blessings

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