Spiritual growth in 2011

I decided to build a plan this year to grow my personal relationship with Jesus.  It is primarily based on Brian Howard's "Freedom Plan", from his Christian Business Guy website.  My plan is going to be based on three pillars of growth.  Prayer, bible study and worshipful action; prayer being meditative growth, bible study being intellectual growth and worshipful action being spiritual growth.

One thing I learned in 2010 is that anything is possible through the love and mercy of the Lord. Up until about May of last year, my life had been without the firm foundation of Jesus, without a moral accountability, without repentance or forgiveness.  My entire being was sinful, hateful, selfish and spiraling into darkness.  I had abandoned trust in the Lord.  It was a slow process, starting way back when I was in high school, and became progressively worse until my marriage ended in August of 2009.  

Through the Lord's greatness, mercy, forgiveness and grace, my life is entirely different.  I had to set aside my selfish desires and throw all of my trust and love to the Lord.  I have experienced true miracles and I owe it all to God's work in my life.  I have few very close friends to thank dearly for their influence in my life.  They were sent to me from God to be models; pillars of love, faith, honesty, truth, acceptance, repentance, forgiveness and grace.  I cannot thank the Lord enough for what He has given me.  He was always there; it took me a series of significant failures in my life to realize just how important He is to my entire being.  I am happy to say that I have made Jesus the center of my being.  I was falling, and he caught me.  I asked for his forgiveness and grace and He opened his arms and swept me away.  I asked to be filled with the Holy Spirit, so that my heart and mind overflowed with His love and compassion; He gave me amazing brothers and sisters in Christ to respect for their love of the Lord, their compassion and to learn from their examples.  I praise Him and thank Him every day for His grace and mercy.    

Through my re-dedication to the Lord, it is clear to me that I need to be a shining example of repentance and forgiveness, of God's truth and of the Holy Spirit's presence in my life.  I want people to look at me and think about why I'm different.  I want those thoughts to trigger the Holy Spirit to move within them. The only way to accomplish that is to grow my own personal relationship with Jesus so my everyday actions, thoughts and behavior is done in praise and compassion.  I want God's work and His desires to manifest in me.  If I can grow inside, the outside of me will benefit.  Nothing would make me happier to be a reflection of the Lord's love and mercy.

Sustaining, growing and developing one's personal relationship with the Lord is of utmost importance.  It is something to be thought about and acted on every day.  As my best friend commented to me recently, "God uses the willing.  We have to be willing to surrender our selfish, sinful life and live in faith through His ways. It is not our nature to surrender to Him.  Only by surrender will we find the strength to be a living sacrifice." It requires dedication, faith and unselfishness, love and daily choices that are not in our selfish interest, but His, because His intentions are perfect.  One must be dedicated to praising Him, unconditional love of the Lord, compassion for our fellow creatures and God's word of truth.  Above all, one has to trust the Lord with every aspect of one’s life.  We have to give up our desires and let loose of our control and freely offer it to God.  He will provide.  He always does.

Meditative Growth through Prayer

As a people filled with sin, we need to focus daily on prayer.  We can grow in the Lord when we spend time meditating on trust, repentance and healthy conversation with the Lord.  He will listen and answer your prayers.  In this regard, I am going to take a page from many others before me and dedicate at least three fifteen minute sessions of prayer to my daily regimen; before work, at lunch and at home before bed.  My prayer time will be based on two primary goals.  First, thankfulness for my life, my salvation and the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon me.  The second half of my prayers will be of repentance for sin and guidance in my daily decision making.  Most of us have daily prayer needs to combat temptations, requests for guidance, patience, clarity of thought, enlightenment and good decision making as well as other daily challenges.  I'm sure there will be days where more dedicated prayer time is needed.  Not to say that other times of the day will be devoid of prayer, because there are always other times that the Lord deserves thanks and thoughtful requests for guidance.  

Intellectual Growth through Bible Study

One cannot possibly take in enough amazing lessons the Bible teaches.  We can only dedicate a significant amount of time each day to reading the Bible and gleaning truth and understanding from its lessons.  We should follow the readings with prayers; that we gain understanding and further our relationship with Jesus through the Word of God.  

This basis of this area in my plan will be an exact replica of Brian Howard's guide.  

"Commit to a daily devotional time with the Lord.  You desperately need to talk to God in prayer every day and he desires this fellowship with you as well.  During this time you need to read at least one chapter in Psalms, one chapter in Proverbs, one chapter in the Book of John and one chapter in the Epistles, such as Corinthians, Philippians, 1 John, etc. per day.  That is four chapters in the Bible per day." 

This won't be the end of my daily Bible study, but the minimum.  There are always times where I will be sent to a specific chapter or verse through the Lord and my normal connections with friends and family.  The Lord always sends messages to us in this way and we need to be open to receiving the word of God.  I will not shut out those messages because it doesn't fit into my plan.  My plan will be flexible to stay open to the Lord's communications to me.  

Spiritual Growth through Worshipful Action

This is probably the most fun part of my new plan.  It not only involves daily dedication to right action, honesty and willing sacrifice, but it is the outward reflection of the Lord in my life.  It is things like writing this blog and sharing it with my loved ones.  It is probably the most personally gratifying because the response from others is so readily apparent.  It is about worshipping the Lord as I play music on the worship team in church.  It is about the Lord showing His grace, compassion and mercy through me.  It is absolutely His presence and work in my life that I can do these things.  It is not of my doing, but His.  I can only hope to impart on those that see me and my action and pray that their hearts will be moved by the Holy Spirit.  Of course, I will gain immeasurable spiritual growth from partaking in the Lord's command to work in His glory. Nothing is more rewarding than working, playing or behaving in a manner that glorifies the Lord. 

This part of my plan is the most ambiguous to me at this time.  I know that I have the ability to impart my love of the Lord on others and that I can spread the message of His glory and compassion, His forgiveness and mercy and the path to our salvation through Jesus Christ.  But I am not sure yet where this path leads.  I do not know what the Lord has in store for me and how my ministry will evolve.  I know that it is good and that His intentions for me are perfect.  He will reveal that to me in due time.  I am truly excited about it and I know His grace and through repentance and forgiveness will be manifested in me.  I will trust Him with all my heart.

The most important theme of my plan is obviously trust in the Lord.  I have set goals and means to achieve the goals, but it will always be subject to change, depending on what the Lord tells me.  My heart and mind will be open to all the Lord's commands, because I know His blessing are abundant.  He will continue to work his grace and mercy through my friends and family.  I hope that through His work in my life, I can be a reflection of His love and compassion to others.

Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.  In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. – Proverbs 3: 5-6