|
Friday, July 11, 2014
Steps of growth – Add in Self-control to knowledgeSteps of growth
– Add in Self-control to knowledge
“I am very happy because I have conquered myself and not the world. I am very happy
because I have loved the world and not myself.” ~ Sri Chinmoy
Sri is an Indian spiritual guy and teaches eastern meditation techniques
to people in America. He also advocates exercise and athleticism as a path to spiritual enlightenment.
His approach, which appears good, is the reason
Peter says the steps to Christian growth need to be in a specific order.
That way we don’t make the mistakes Sri has made and delude
ourselves into a false spiritualism.
Peter who knew Jesus really well said…
“Grace and peace be yours in abundance through
the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge
of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so
that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this
very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control;”
2 Peter 1
I have blogged
on how we need to first have faith before we can add goodness, and then we need goodness before we add knowledge.
Knowledge and particularly
knowledge that Jesus came to represent God on earth as a man, and that Jesus shows us how to live for God is critically important.
Also knowledge that Holy Spirit has been given to those that have faith, and that by acknowledging Jesus and wanting to live
our lives for Him, we become God’s children.
This gives us great strength and keeps us from falling into false spirituality.
God’s love empowers us, but there is
many different things each day that need to be dealt with.
It is for this reason that once we have worked on those three aspects of faith,
goodness and knowledge,
that we get to focus on the next step which is self-control.
Self-control is something that man has in greater abundance than any other creature.
Our oversized frontal lobe of our brain gives us an ability to suppress immediate impulsive responses. We have abilities to
plan and think out alternatives.These
are key aspects of self-control. Christians have to carefully place their own immediate wants and reactions under that loving
control of Jesus. He builds us and enables us to stop doing things that would adversely impact his purpose for us spiritually.
For
Christians the self-control is not about us but about God.
When a non-Christian swears hits others
or is mean, we say it’s just them being badly behaved. If a Christian does the same, people quickly point out it is
hypocritical behaviour.
THEY know! We are to be driven by God, not ourselves.
We need to know this as well. Our Self-control is to suppress the evil aspects within us and enable the
loving Godly aspects. In this way we increase in Godly wisdom and submission to God’s will.
Self-control to us has overtones above and
beyond the self-control of non-Christians.
Lets’ remember that as we have a good self-controlled day!
Fri, July 11, 2014 | link
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Steps of growth – Add in knowledge to goodness Steps of growth
– Add in knowledge to goodness
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing."
-
Socrates
I explained previously why we needed to add goodness to faith. The bible now talks about the next
step as being knowledge being added to goodness.
(2 Peter 1)
We need to know Jesus is God, then experience this as a life changing
fact, and then we need to be motivated to do something as a result of appreciation of what Jesus did for us.
Our next step is to gain knowledge. Knowledge
of what is in the bible, how it was in the days it was written and how it applies to our lives today.
We need to be inquisitive, turning over all areas of life to gain
knowledge and understanding. We should be searching for truth continually. Jesus said he was the way the truth and the life,
so we should be confident that discoveries will lead to God and all that we need do is delve deeper and know more.
In my blogs I have written
extensively around various areas of science and how they and the bible align in so many ways. There are areas that science
disagrees, but in deep investigation, we can find out that these are very limited and often based on specific interpretations
of information. God is good. We know that we have Christians in every branch of science so these people must have an understanding
of God in their work. Not all of us will agree, but regarding our bible and it’s contents, and the knowledge in it,
we should agree.
So
today, let’s remember a step of faith is the gaining of knowledge. God built our universe so investigating
it and Him is the only way to gain and become more like God.
Have a wonderful fact finding day!
Tue, July 8, 2014 | link
|
