Friday, 20 July 2012

Four Steps To Developing The Human Spirit(Part one)


DEVELOPING THE HUMAN SPIRIT

On Wednesday, I talked about how king  David loved God with all his heart. David was a man who was more spiritually matured than all his brothers. God chose him as king and blessed him abundantly because of his love for the Almighty God. God chose him because he was more matured in his heart than all his brothers. God loves people who develop their spirit. Today, I would like us to look at four steps that can help us to develop our human spirit. A spiritually matured person knows the will of God always. Since God is a spirit His main mode of communicating to us is our spirits. We need to have our spiritual senses always alert to hear from God. The best mode of communication is physical personal contact. God is personally residing in our spirits. He decided to reside in us so he can speak to us plainly and as often as need be. Dreams, Prophesy, Angels, Heavenly voices and Visions have their place. They all help us to hear from God. Most of these mediums of communication are rare. The reason they are rare is that we have God Himself in us; the Holy Spirit. We can contact God anytime and anywhere. Suppose you are a couple leaving with your partner. What would be your number one means of communicating to your lover? Would it be through emails, text messages, phone calls or writing of letters? How would you communicate important matters to that couple? I believe your guess is as good as mine: Face to face communication. God also deserves a face to face conversation with you. You look  too far to contact God. Just look inside you! We run after prophets, pastors and other great men of God to seek God’s will and direction. How would you feel if each time your partner wants to talk to you about serious issues, he or she uses your work colleague as a medium. Would you be happy about this? You would think something is wrong with the relationship. This attitude can even ruin the marriage. Don’t ruin your relationship with God. Learn to train you spirit to effectively communicate with Him always. Four steps involved in developing your spirit are:

a.       Let the word of God abide in you richly
b.      Practice the word of God
c.      Pray without ceasing
d.      Walk in the spirit

1.       LET THE WORD ABIDE IN YOU RICHLY

Josh 1:8 This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe {and} do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely {and} have good success
Col 3:16 Let the word [spoken by] Christ (the Messiah) have its home [in your hearts and minds] {and} dwell in you in [all its] richness, as you teach and admonish {and} train one another in all insight {and} intelligence {and} wisdom [in spiritual things, and as you sing] psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody to God with [His] grace in your hearts.

The Spiritual Food
 Since the time of Adam, plant and animal have been the main source of food to help the human body grow. The methods of preparing food have improved over the years. But this has not changed the role of foods in human body development. The same applies to other aspects of your personality. Learning and education are the foods that develops our mind. The methods of learning and education have improved over time. These improvements have not changed the principle of learning to improve your mind. When it comes to your heart(I mean your inner man not the physical heart), the food for your spirit is the Word of Christ. This truth will never change. Bible says man shall not live on bread alone but on every Word that comes out of the mouth of God. This means that as bread is to the body so the Word of God is to the Spirit. Feed on the Word so your spirit will grow. You feed on the Word by meditation. 

Meditate on the word
Meditation is hearing, thinking and speaking the word. Hearing involves reading,watching and listening. Read your Bible every day. Watch and listen to Bible preaching all the time. After hearing the Word, recite and memorize it. All these would help you get the Word to dwell in your heart. God has not changed. His ways are still the same. The way to God’s blessings is His word. The sure way your spirit can contact God is through His word. The word teaches us the ways of God. And all the ways of God lead to our success and prosperity. Meditation on the Word is the only way to become prosperous and very wise. To deal wisely in the affairs of this life, the Word must dwell in your heart richly. God instructed Joshua to meditate, observe and do the Word. He said this would make Joshua wise and cause his way to be prosperous. Apostle Paul also instructs us of the new covenant to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. He said this would make us have joy in our hearts and capable of teaching others in all wisdom. This is very similar to the command Joshua received from Moses. As Moses instructed Joshua, God is instructing us today through Apostle Paul. The instruction is that we should allow the Word to dwell in our spirits richly. God would not do this for us. We have to do it ourselves.

The Results of Speaking the Word
Most of us have succeeded in getting the Word into our head but we must also get it into our heart. It is only when the Word gets to the heart that it can produce results. The Word gets to our heart when we think about the Word and speak it. Always reason the Word with your heart and confess it. I said reason it with your heart not your mind. The mind can not accept the truth in the Bible. I am not saying the Bible is not logical. But what I want to drive at is that the Word is more Spiritual than analytical. Spiritual things are foolishness to the flesh and the mind. The Bible is spiritual because most of the benefits we receive from it  can not be seen or felt. The anointing in the Word that produces results can not be seen. Let the Word soak deed into you so it can stir the Anointing in you to produce results. The anointed Word produces results when we speak it. When you speak the Word from your heart four things happen. The first is when you speak it to yourself. This brings encouragement and edification to your soul that shatters all your fears. Speaking the Word also causes situations to change. Use the Word as a force to move away the mountains and hindrances in your life. Thirdly, the Word produces heartfelt effectual prayers. The word of God in your heart would propel you to declare a prayer of faith against any storm that comes your way. Finally, the Word can be used to resist any move of the devil. The spoken Word causes demonic forces to retreat and surrender. As you declare the Word angels are deplored from heaven. Heaven respond swiftly with miracles, signs and wonders as its citizens speak. God approves and confirms the Word of His children today as He did for the early Apostles everywhere they went. 

Next week we would look at the other three steps involved in developing the heart. Thanks for reading and enjoy the weekend.

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