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Spiritual Maturity: An Attempt at Definition
Spiritual maturity is impossible to measure. I know. I have tried. When I worked for a small Christian liberal arts university, we wanted to test whether our students gained anything from all the spiritual formation groups, Bible courses, and chapels. I heard other Christian schools were trying to develop similar rubrics, but I never heard of a particularly successful measure. Measuring spiritual maturity is not like measuring knowledge. You can’t simply pass a test or write a paper. In fact, a fair amount of disagreement exists about spiritual maturity. I think one might need to possess some to recognize it, but I hate even to nail that down. After all,…
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Encouragement for Faith Bloggers: Filling the Jars
As a blogger, I need regular encouragement. I wanted to share my own experience with the prayer exercise I published just yesterday because it blesses me on a number of different levels. You can find the link at the end of this post. The gist of it was an imaginative participation in the story of the widow who asks Elisha for help. He tells her to borrow as many pots and jars as possible and fill them up with her little jar of oil. I sat this morning in prayer and as always my blog is on my mind. My numbers go up and down, and I struggle with equating…
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Needy: A Prayer for Desperate Times
We are all needy in one or another aspect of our lives. Being needy carries a certain stigma with it, but God in His Word says much on the topic. This prayer exercise comes in four parts to help fill those black holes and empty spaces in our hearts and lives. Whether you are needy financially, emotionally, or physically, this exercise addresses all the steps to moving from being empty to full. Taking the destitute widow who came to Elisha for help as our example, let us move from being have-nots to being full of the Holy Spirit and God’s abundant provision. One of the emotions that prevent us from…
Healing Through Art & Words
