How to Grow with Jesus

 

    To grow with Jesus starts with acknowledging that he is part of the Trinity.  You have to humble yourself to him as your Lord.  Then you have to spend time learning his ways to understand what is expected from you.  When you take the time to study, pray, and meditate the Holy Spirit will be  working within you making subtle changes.  

    Jesus' apostles saw the importance of prayer, so they asked Jesus to teach them how to pray.  We can still ask God to teach you how to pray.  Ask him to reveal hidden sin in your life and show you how to change things.  Repentance does not come naturally.  It needs to be learned.  We have the Lord's prayer to help us learn how to pray.  It puts our heart and mind in align with God.  It is simple and easy enough to remember to cover all the biggies: honor God, substance, forgiveness, and avoid evil.

    Pray boldly.  Don't stop pursuing something important to you until you get an answer from God.  There is a reason it is on your heart.  If it matters, then you should be persistent.  God will respond to persistent prayer.  Seek him and seek to understand him, so that you better know how to pray.  

    Pray that God heals your spiritual and emotional wounds.  Ask him to give you relief from any evil that may be tormenting you.  There was a demon that made a man mute.  No one knew that he was suffering, but when Jesus came across him he drove out the demon.  The man was finally able to speak.  If you are in survival mode, you can't grow in your relationship.  You need to ask God to remove the blocker. 

    When an evil spirit is driven away, then you need to cleanse you mind, body, soul, and home.  Make it an uninviting environment for any evil.  Otherwise it could come back with friends and take your life back over.  You could find yourself in a worse situation if you don't take the time to make changes.  

    Blessings come to those that hear God's Word and keep it.  We live among evil.  It is not easy to do the right thing all the time.  We always have pressure to succeed to the world's way of doing things.  It takes real strength to live a Christ like life.  Jesus is wiser than even Solomon.  Why would we ignore his wise words of guidance?  Ignoring him leads to judgment.  Listening and applying leads to blessings.  Live a Christlike lifestyle boldly and the darkness will be removed.

    In the end it will not be good for the hypocrites.  We need to be concerned with cleansing our own soul over judging how other people chose to live their lives.  We don't don't everything going on in or to them.  Don't give your tithe to God to do the right thing and then deny loving other people.  Learn to love, use that love to guide your judgment, then give back to God.    None of us should steal from God by not tithing, but focus on why you tithe more than the action itself.  

    Don't seek fame and glory, but seek to give praise to God in all that he provides for you.  Be careful not to defile what is God's property.  That includes your own body.  We can defile things without even being aware, so that is why we need to pray for guidance.  Then we need to ask for forgiveness for any hidden sin once it has been revealed.  Seek to be genuine and true.  Avoid corruption where you can because it will mislead you.  

    What good is it to know the Bible inside and out, but not have it in your daily life.  We have to live it.   We need friends that are growing in their relationship with God to help us.  They can reveal some things in our blind spots and they can support us when things get hard.  God made us the body of Christ for a reason.  We need each other to succeed.  

    We all will be held accountable for how we live, so why not try to live in a manner that is pleasing to God.  Stop allowing other people burden you with how they think you should live.  God has the answers.  His opinion is the only that really matters.  Jesus is the light in your life, let him shine.  

Luke 11