Wow! - Brag on God.
Now... - Tell God about life. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
How? - Stop talking and start listening as God speaks to you by his Holy Spirit and his Word.
Ephesians chapter 3
Specifically 3:16-21 (this is the primary text for Sunday's message)
KaBoom!! - What you experience when you are obedient to God's ways.
Below is what I wanted to share for the day. I have added it below as it is my personal thoughts and you reading God's Word has priority over my thoughts. So, start with the Holy Scriptures and if you still have time you can venture on to what I was thinking about.
Blessings,
Pastor Matt
Last Spring I asked the people of New City Church to take a survey concerning many areas of their physical and spiritual life (see yesterday's blog for insight).
What we discovered, based on the responses, was that 50% of the adults of New City Church never or hardly every read their Bible! When I saw this data I realized something, half of New City Church were infants in their faith. Here's the good news, everyone starts in this stage of spiritual maturity. The question that must be answered is, "How long will one remain a spiritual infant?"
As a parent of an infant, if you want to drive yourself crazy and stay in a state of complete frustration do the following...Place the jar of baby food in front of your child and then tell him to eat. You can tell him all day. You can even have other parents come over and tell him to eat. But, to your dismay, you will discover, he will not eat until you personally feed him.
What I realized is this, it does little good for me to stand on the stage and say, "Read your Bible." 50% can't, they have yet to developed the skills necessary to read the Bible on their own. In this first stage of spiritual infancy I discovered - a parent is required to feed the infant.
Now it's cute to feed a baby and laugh as he makes funny faces when he taste something new. It's even cute when he spits it out. When he's a baby it's cute. When he's 4 it's not cute...It's annoying. There comes a time when the transition happens from being fed to becoming a self-feeder.
Here's the second phase of spiritual infancy - a parent helps the infant feed themselves. This part is messy but necessary. You have to place the spoon in their hand and then help guide it to their mouth. This doesn't happen once but rather over and over and over. Until...They get it.
Before long, the baby can pick up his spoon, plunge it in to some food, and cram it into his mouth. It's a beautiful thing. And this is the final stage of being a spiritual infant - the person is able to feed themselves.
The same is true for the 50% of adults at New City Church. Here's how you know if you're still in the infant stage, "Do you feed yourself or do you expect someone to feed you?" If you want to spiritually grow up you have to feed yourself. (If you're reading this you've probably moved out of the infant stage:)
I don't consider this blog as me feeding you. If I had to stand over your shoulder and read it for you...well that would be different, and a little weird. This blog is a tool. I do this so that we can 1.)Walk towards Jesus together and 2.)Share it with others who are joining the journey.
So...If you've read this far I'd appreciate some feedback. Would you find the time to email me at matt@newcitychurch.com and let me know if this tool (the blog) is affective? If yes, how might you help share it with others within our church body our even within our local community?