Barriers to Spiritual Growth Bonus Blog!

As promised, my post today focuses on the “bonus points” I promised to those who attended Frontline this past Sunday, January 7, 2007. The title of the message was “Barriers to Spiritual Growth.” If you were unable to attend Frontline last Sunday and you’d like to hear or download the message from the internet, just click on the following link – Barriers to Spiritual Growth (Currently at the top of the media archives list).

The two barriers to spiritual growth I find often in the lives of Frontliners who are genuinely trying to get their relationship with God on the “right track” are: 1) Wrong motives for following Jesus, and 2) Emotions trumping the Bible as their source for spiritual Truth. There is a third area that is not so prevalent as the two above, but would still merit the number three spot on the list of most common barriers – Lack of knowledge as to the vastness and depth of Christ’s love for His children!

About a year ago, at the end of one of my messages (can’t remember which one) I asked people to reads along with me as I read the statements from what I called “The Truth Card.” Each person was given their own Truth Card (about the size of a business card) and on it were the following truths:

PROPITIATION - we are deeply loved !
John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
JUSTIFICATION - we are totally forgiven !
2 Corinthians 5:21
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
RECONCILIATION - we are totally accepted !
Colossians 1:22
But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.
REGENERATION - we are complete in Christ !
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

For some believers, they are unable to find greater intimacy with God because they have never been told exactly how God feels toward them as his children. We can’t respond rightly toward God and others until we grasp just how extreme the love of God is toward those who believe.

Ponder for a moment…you are deeply loved, totally forgiven, totally accepted, and complete in Christ! Nothing is required from you as a child of God to receive this kind of unconditional love and acceptance from Him. Any shortcoming you perceive in your family background, financial worth, popularity, or decisions in life is utterly inconsequential when it comes to God’s love toward you as one of His children.

I hope these “bonus points” pierce the hearts of those of you who desperately need to understand just “how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge – that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18-19) I pray that God will open your spiritual eyes to see and your spiritual ears to hear and accept the wonderful truth of God’s unconditional love. These are the truths that lead to freedom and abundance in the life of the believer.

Read these truths again.
Reflect on the unconditional nature of each truth.
Pray and thank God for loving you in such a profound way.
Ask God to help you live your life based on these truths rather than the lies that we all hear from the world.
Live free.
Live abundantly!

Carpe Deum! (Seize God!)
Todd Phillips