07.09.2006

James 1:22
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Philippians 2:12, 13
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Colossians 1:9-14
For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Hello everyone!

Wow, there has been so much going on here with my training that it would take a novel for me to go on about the things I’ve been learning about. And although I tend to be long-winded in my Weeklies, I could write forever on my classes thus far. But let’s put that aside and come back around to something I mentioned in brief last week.

In my last email, I kind of breezed over this metaphor involving a sift and how the number of wires makes a big difference in how garbage is sifted out. At that time I spoke about how a sift with only one half of it threaded with wires was useless. I'd like to touch more on the aspect of a sifter with very few wires being fairly ineffective in the context of maturing in our faith. If you've been getting these emails or if you've been talking to me long enough, you know that I put a pretty heavy emphasis on spiritual growth. Indeed, I encourage every one of us - brothers and sisters, young and old - to be continually seeking growth. In this idea of a sifter, the growth is measured by the amount of wires you have. The more spiritually mature, the more wires and the less garbage that would tend to get through, right? For instance, when I first became a Christian, I used to shake back and forth whenever confronted by non-Christian family members. Although it is hard at times still, I am now (five years later) more rooted and solid in my stance with Christ as our salvation.

To be "spiritually mature" in any sense seems like this mysterious and non-objective state of being, but I really do think that it is a process that we all go through. While Christ through the Holy Spirit is continually working through us, in some respects it can be a choice to be mature. For example, infants have a natural growth process that they must go through but as they get older they also have to learn to work and operate in the human world. If I want to be a better speller, I need to learn how to spell and continue to practice spelling to be an even better speller. If I want to sing, I have to sing and practice singing to be even better. These things don't always come naturally to us. As with being a "mature Christian," it doesn't necessarily come natural to us, but we must continually be learning about and professing what it is that we believe. Because I believe that there is no higher earthly authority than the Bible, I would say that reading, studying, and practicing the Bible is extremely important. Reading to get off on the right foot; studying to understand and go beyond leisure reading; practicing to live it and go far beyond what we call "head-knowledge." There's a lot of stuff you can know about the Bible, but that doesn't necessarily define maturity. I could know about the theories of music, but if I don't put action to it, what does it mean? On the flipside, if I just have the action without the know-how, then how in the world can I invite others in to understanding what I believe?
I encourage each of you (and in hopes, you would encourage me) to be very thoughtful of your walk and relationship with Christ. Are we actively seeking to learn how to have a deeper relationship with Christ? Do we seek to understand, or do we just take things at face-value?

I pray that each of us would not only grow more into mature Christians, I also pray that we would vocalize our faith and our understanding of our faith with others. I pray that the Lord would bring us to use the facilities around us to grow, learn, and share as we age as believers. I also ask that we would put it in our hearts and minds to want to stretch ourselves in order to grow, that our lives would not be spiritually stagnant. I pray that the Holy Spirit would continually refine us more and more into the image of Christ, and unify us under His name.

In love and in Him,
your sister,

Yvonne