Archive for category Discipleship - Lane 3
Spiritual Heart Rate
Posted by Chance in Discipleship - Lane 3, Spiritual Growth on February 18th, 2010
There is a discipline in sports that requires you to control your breathing as you increase in strenuous activity. In fact, it goes beyond breathing into managing and understanding how your heart rate effects your ability to compete. It is a physiological look at the old story of the “Tortoise and the Hare.”
In short, you have the “Rabbit” (anaerobic)
Strenuous exercise, low oxygen intake, high heart rate, inability to turn carbohydrates into fuel, longer recovery period
Then you have the “Turtle” (aerobic)
Medium exercise, high oxygen intake, medium heart rate, effective use of carbohydrates and fats for fuel, shorter recovery period
So what does this have to do with spiritual growth?
While swimming and monitoring my own heart rate, I began to understand a parallel between our physiology and our spirituality. In order to maximize your ability to compete and achieve success you must be willing to use both anaerobic and aerobic activities. Through planning the level of strain and trauma you put on your body, you can increase the effectiveness of your exertion and create sustained success.
Spiritually, God needs us to go through periods of hardship, strain, and trauma in order to teach us how to rely on him. The problem is that if we rely on him in only short bursts, we experience spiritual anaerobic side-effects. We suffocate our spirit, cut off our understanding that comes from the word’s nutrition, and we find ourselves unable to recover.
The parallel continues with those nagging hardships that are designed to keep us on a regular rhythmic path. However, we don’t grow in God by only experiencing one type of strain. Together, all the events of our life our used as an opportunity allow us develop quickness and endurance.
Don’t fight your spiritual training…recognize it, and use it to become effective and successful.
Chance
Back to the Future
Posted by Chance in Discipleship - Lane 3, Outreach - Lane 4, Spiritual Growth, Uncategorized on February 12th, 2010
C.S. Lewis “If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Some call it midlife crisis…you know…the idea that when people hit their mid thirties they begin to feel as if they haven’t lived or made an impact. They begin to question themselves in relation to this world. As a result, they begin to change the external things about themselves attempting to meet the inner thirst for significance.
Ecclesiastes 7:4 NLT “A wise person thinks much about death, while the fool thinks only about having a good time now.”
I don’t think we actually dwell on death, but the eternal should be the standard for our actions, not the temporal.
Have you secured your hope in Christ?
Are you doing those things that will carry an eternal significance?
Are you still alive? Then you still have a purpose!
I talked to a friend the other day and we shared our struggle with the “American Dream.” It’s not that I fear education, career, achievement, or the corporate ladder. What I fear is that when the day is done, I haven’t advanced in what Ron Woods titled in a sermon, “The Gospel Dream.”
I challenge you this week to do those things that are outside of routine and rhythm. Do something amazing…something that is made for another world!
Chance
A Spiritual Barometer?
Posted by Chance in Discipleship - Lane 3, Spiritual Growth on December 2nd, 2009
We have all done something or acted in a way that shocked ourselves or at least forced us to publish a statement of regret or retraction. What hurts even more, at least for me, is the conflict within my mind and soul over growth. Not to copy Paul’s tongue twister (Romans 7), but I could have swore I have been taking the steps to engage in bible studies, prayer, healthy entertainment choices, and even serving the poor (only a little sarcasm). When it is all over, I still have this tendency to freakishly turn into this green monster of rage (you pick your poison).
Situations like these uncover the paradoxical issue of measuring ourselves on the continuum of spiritual growth.
First, should this even surprise us? It seems that most things in God’s kingdom and learning economy seem to have a divine process that places ours backwards. It doesn’t take long to realize that the bible emphasizes becoming a slave to be free, poor to be rich, last to be first, dead to be alive, etc.
However, we do not carry this obvious lesson with us through other experiences. Otherwise, we would know that spiritual growth cannot be measured by the number or depth of activities. In popular spiritual growth language we like to always defer to ’spiritual disciplines’ as the measurement. We climb up this slippery slope fallacy that leads us into a struggle to read more books, finish more bible reading plans, chart more hours of prayer, and acquire a more spiritual iTunes library. The result is a spiritual binge that leaves us sluggish and unable to react to the real barometer of growth……LIFE!
In a series on Pursuing Spiritual Transformation, Ortberg, Pederson, and Poling write, “Spiritual disciplines are not a barometer of spirituality…disciplines are never ends in themselves-only means to a greater end.” The greater end is being able to face the road we call life, and fulfill the greatest commandment to “love God and love man.” It almost seems cliche’ to use this phrase because it has become a brand more than a barometer, a catchphrase more than a cause, and a philosophy more than a plan.
To cycle back to the epiphany of my conversational experiences this past week. Spiritual growth is found in every situation, circumstance, and moment. It is available when you need to exercise restraint, express love, or endure suffering. Elevating God through emanate His love is transformation. Capture every moment, whether good or bad, easy or tough, expected or not. View them through a filter that measures your ability to love. This is where the measurement will capitalize on the proper use of spiritual disciplines, which is to build up the strength, stamina, and skill set for accomplishing the task.
Chance
Starving for Growth
Posted by Chance in Discipleship - Lane 3, Spiritual Growth on October 26th, 2009
Paul’s tongue tying discourse on the internal battle we have to do good is perhaps the unveiling truth of spiritual growth.
Romans 7:15 (NLT) “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but i don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate.”
The difference between a disciple of Christ and a decision to believe in Christ is the use of the Romans 7 realization to create intentional change. Instead of a crutch, the human frailty becomes a catapult for making specific decisions for feeding the spirit man and starving the flesh.
Romans 8:6 (NLT) “So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.”
There is a distinctive separation between the power found in God and our freedom to make daily choices. However, the separation is not in God’s ability and our inability. Instead, it is in our effort combined with the grace/Spirit of God to create life and peace.
We stand in verse 6 as the entity free to let or allow the sinful nature to control us or the Spirit to control us. Ultimately, you have to give your best effort to starve the sinful nature. Sometimes the starvation is pushed upon us through consequence or divine providence. However, we can begin today to strategically and effectively cut off the nutritional source of our sinful nature.
Examples include:
Limiting television time
Limiting unhealthy music selections
Denying yourself desires of the flesh
Please make a comment on how you are starving your sinful man!
Chance
