Jan2017

Our spiritual lives are in one of three different categories.

We are categorized as children in our youngest phase.  This is the first phase.  We lust after our own flesh and having our own needs met all the time ... like the baby bird with its beak upturned.  "Mommy's going to bring me a worm."

In this phase, we have nothing in our consciousness other than the nest and mommy and having our needs met.  There's no decision to "love" on our part.  That's not really possible at this point in our life.

In the second phase we have some growth behind us.  This is the area of "sonship".  We discover that we were born to love.  It's kind of built in, automatic ... kind of hereditary.  There's still no real, no voluntary act or decision in us to love the Father, the Son, His Word, the Holy Spirit.  "Me love the Father?  Well, sure, He's my Father, isn't He?  I'm His son."  He's the Initiator of the Love, then we "attempt to love" Him back.

There's no real understanding of this love... it's just there.  Oh, you also have your eye on your inheritance ... and this is where a lot of us "hyperfaith" folks are these days.  But we are growing out of this stage ... HALLELUJAH!

Then the third and final stage of our spiritual life is MATURITY.  We've gone through childhood into sonship and now we're moving into maturity.  This is where we choose to love.  The Lord wants us to be so intimate and involved with Him ... not just His works, but Him ... that we want to "birth" His babies into the Kingdom through intercession and praise.

Using a bride as an illustration ... she has an all consuming desire to give her love and to lose herself in her lover.  She desires to have her identity absorbed into him, and in so doing, she finds her true identity.

So make Jesus the focal point of your love and your attention, and thus become the mature believer that He desires you to be. 

Reverend Robert W. & Mary C. Butler

 

goldnuggets

Giftislove

John 3:16

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