practicality of growth

I strongly believe that Spiritual Transformation belongs to God - only He has the power to change us and mold us. However, that being said, I also feel that we have a responsibility toward enabling that growth to happen.

I had a conversation recently (the preview 2 posts stemmed from that conversation) about someone trying to become more patient. Patience is a gift - it is a spiritual gift - given from the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5, Paul outlines immoral behavior contrasting with moral behavior:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit let us also walk by the Spirit.

My point was that patience is a FRUIT - and a fruit is not something that we can do by ourselves. Yet we do have a responsibility toward the production of this fruit. In trees (or bushes), fruit happens when the tree is watered, fertilized and protected (from high winds, tornados, anything that could otherwise disrupt its production). So too with us: when we seek connection with the Holy Spirit (prayer=water), read our bible (=fertilization) and are otherwise protected from damages by the Enemy (recognizing evil, recognizing and confessing our sins), we will produce fruit. A couple of things I want to point out regarding fruit production:

1. It is cyclical - i.e. fruit happens once a year, when the weather is nice and the tree has been properly fed and watered. This should translate into the fact that we should not expect a 100% fruitful transformation for the rest of our lives: transformation happens in steps.
2. There are periods of non-fruitfulness. There comes a time each season when the tree cannot produce any more fruit. This is natural. We cannot maintain a 100% fruit bearing life, we should expect times of unfruitfulness as well.
3. Fruit is the by-product of a well fed, well watered and well protected tree. Stay connected with the Holy Spirit (prayer, meditation, fasting) and stay reading the Bible (fertilization), continue to recognize your sins and confess them and YOU WILL BECOME FRUITFUL.
4. Fruit production is natural. Trees and shrubs live to produce fruit - and so do you. Maintain your course and you will produce fruit.

You may be wondering what our responsibility is, if this transformation is supposedly left up to God. Our responsibility is this: we are to be continually asking for the presence of the Holy Spirit (through prayer, fasting, meditation, etc.), we are to remain in His Word and we are to confess our sins.

Now, I really hate for this to be formulaic. I don't want to boil down the Christian life to one formula of things you have to do in order to be transformed - that is NOT how God works. Each one of us is unique and has a completely different "spiritual makeup" and therefore God meets each of us in different and unique ways. There is no one "right" way to do any of these things.

I do, however, recognize that some people need a bit more "guidance" as to how to do all of this. Particularly when we are faced with large amounts of guilt and shame. To this end, I would like to talk about some practical steps that we can take.

I took a bible study class with the teaching paster of my church in Naperville about 9 years ago. He is no longer there but his class has impacted me profoundly over the years. He had a way of presenting spiritual transformation in very practical ways. His name is Bill Giovanetti and he is now with a church in Redmond, CA. I'm not going to present his full theology, or his full teaching, as that it not feasible. But I do want to talk about what he calls "The Grace Drill".

One of the things that makes Dr. Giovanetti's theology interesting is that he presents God's side and Satan's side of things. Guilt and shame are constructs of Satan. They are the tools he uses to divert our attention from the fact that we live under Grace, and as such, once our sin is confessed, it is forgotted by God. Not always so for us. Guild and shame, if not dealt with immediately, can grow and morph into an amazing cloud from which we have a hard (re: DIFFICULT) time seeing the sun (re:SON). Here are the steps that you can practice to dissipate that awful cloud:

1. Confess it:  simply acknowledge your sin directly to God. (1 Cor 11:31;  Ps 66:18;  Pro 12:13;  Eph 4:22)
2. Crossify it:  remind yourself that Christ has already paid for the sin, and thank him for it.
3. Contain it:  do not let the sin you are confessing to God generate other sins.
4. Cancel it:  Accept the consequences, forget the past and move on.  Don’t stew over your sins, don’t punish yourself, don’t let guilt and shame control you.

Four steps. Its that easy.