The Practical Disciple » Entries tagged with "spiritual growth"
Lose 25 pounds of worthless fat…off of your spirit
Just as you need to maintain physical fitness, you need to nourish and exercise your spirit. The Apostle Paul spoke about the need for and the value of training in godliness. My guest, Rev. Michael Vinson, in today’s podcast breaks down the nourishment of your spirit into three easy to apply inputs you need every day. If you are overly busy and thinking, “I can’t even nourish my body properly, let alone my spirit.” then … Read entire article »
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27 Days Until the Start of a New You!
What if you could be saying this time next year, “I just finished the New Testament.” Today, I had a man come in my office and declare to me that he has finished the New Testament all but the Book of Revelation. His Bible reading began last Lent when he adopted scripture reading as a lentenndiscipline. Multiple times he has come to me with stories of how a passage has spoken to him or how he understood something differently because of the scripture reading he is now doing. That could be you. You could be a physically fitter you who saved money for 40 days. Last year I wanted to work on what I call body holiness and simplicity. I realized that I hadn’t been the best steward of my … Read entire article »
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What is your favorite substitute?
I was reading a blog on blogging and it was flagging the fact that many bloggers get trapped in activities that might help them, but typically serve as mostly distraction. For instance, they might habitually check stats or obsess on the design of their blog. Those aren’t bad activities, but the heart beat of blogging is actually creating valuable content. I find that I sometimes do the same thing with my faith. For example, I recall in seminary one time going to the bookstore and browsing what I refer to as the “Christian self-help section.” (what an oxymoron) Anyways, I am browsing books on prayer when I realize that I had shelves of these. I didn’t need another book telling what I needed to do. I just need to pray. … Read entire article »
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Living excuse free
In a recent post I addressed the problem of rationalizing our sins. PD reader Laurie shared 4 of her most common excuses. That inspired me to share mine. My experience has been (and my experience is vast) of rationalizing that most of my rational lies fall into one of about 4 categories. 1) Begging off on other people. ”Everyone does it.” ”I am not as bad as her.” “They made me do it.” These type of statements are examples of blaming others for the choices you make. Such words deny personal responsibility. 2) Thinking ourselves inadequate. “I couldn’t do that I am too old, young, can’t speak well enough.” Truth be told you are inadequate. You need God. God doesn’t call the equipped he equips the called. So whatever your lacking, trust … Read entire article »
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Prayer Journaling 3, Resistance
When I start a new spiritual discipline I have a lot energy around it, but after a couple of weeks when the novelty of newness wears off I find that I start resisting doing it. I discovered this past Sunday many of our youth are just like me. They are still working hard at their prayer journals, but the second week it was harder to be motivated. We are at the intersection of “wanting” and “committed”. The difference between wanting something and being committed to it is whether or not you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it. My experience has been that in every new discipline you reach a crunch point where you gain enough experience that you start questioning whether or not your really want … Read entire article »
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Prayer Journaling Difficulties and Solutions
Our youth have been prayer journaling for a week now using a method that I outlined in the Prayer Journaling Orientation video posted a week ago. Last Sunday we discussed their experiences. In today’s brief video I share 5 common difficulties they encountered and 3 “triggers” for being consistent. They have had some really awesome God-incidence stories happen because of their prayer journaling. I can’t wait to see what a couple more weeks of journaling is going to yield. You can expect more video posts on the lessons they learn. On another note…Today’s video has a cleaner , crisper audio signal with more volume range over prior videos. Unfortunately, in my efforts to improve audio I ran into a technical difficulty resulting in audio coming through only the left channel. My … Read entire article »
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