Words of Encouragement

The Spiritual Quest – Part 3

We talked last week about the process we must take on our spiritual quest. Let us take a look a something Paul says about growing up spiritually. “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” – 1 Corinthians 13:11. Unfortunately many of us are not allowing God to grow us spiritually and we have become comfortable being a child. In this instance child represents unlearned and simple in knowledge or understanding, and undisciplined.


I talked like a child – that means we have not grown in the things we say. Are we still murmurers, complainers and naysayers? Are we still speaking as thou we are defeated and not victorious in Christ? Are we still speaking out in anger, or using mean words instead of being loving, and kind? Are we still lying even in the smallest things, such as telling someone to tell the person on the phone we are not at home, when we are standing right there because we don’t want to talk right now? Are we still taking “things” from work and saying we are borrowing them, when we have no intentions to return them?


I thought like a child –Are we thinking thoughts based on fleshing pursuits, to fulfill our physical lust and not on things that will grow us spiritually? Are we thinking on the things that God tells us to, things that are lovely and pure, or are we caught up in our thoughts of despair, worry and fear? Are our thoughts on our importance, our success and not on how to be warriors of the cross on how to be true Disciples of Christ as he calls all to be?


I reasoned like a child – Is your reasoning based on self-satisfaction, or is it for the glory of God? Do you reason that because others are not getting involved with the mission of God, that that some how gives you a pass to go and sit down?


When we have childish thoughts, speech and reasoning, we hinder the process of growth in our lives. Instead God wants us to “mature” or to take “action” and do what is needed to allow us to grow.

In order to be in touch with a living God that calls us to mature we must take “action”.


We must study to show ourselves approved by God. – If we do not study our Bibles we will not be able to stand against the tricks that come our way, and we will be tossed back and forth.


We must take time to pray – It is important that we pray seeking God for direction and in that time we must also be quiet to hear what it is he saying to us. We should even pray before we read our word and ask God to open our understanding. And then afterwards, ask God to help us become a doer of what he has just shown us. We need to pray for others and their needs. Our prayer life must grow from simply asking for personal wants, to seeking that God’s perfect will be done in our lives.

We must be open to God – Again we must be willing to hear and heed the direction of the Lord. We may even have to ask God to help us hear and know it is him speaking to us, because he says his sheep hear and know his voice, and then to help us do as he instructs, so that we can simply “GO” and do it.

We must seek to live holy – We must give over all those immature, childish desires that keep us from sacrificing ourselves completely to God. We must seek to daily walk in what we have learned, and this helps us on our journey of holiness. God is holy so he is looking for a people that are holy. We seek to do this so we can do as the scripture instructs, “may grow us up into him in all things”. We want to give him complete access to our lives (come back next week for the next installment).