7 Steps to Spiritual Fitness Life ApplicationGuide

Transcription

1 7 Steps to Spiritual Fitness Life ApplicationGuide Lesson 4 By Susan Scott

2 2 NOTICE: You Do Not Have the Right to Reprint this Ebook, share the digital file or otherwise transmit this document in any form You may not give away or share the content herein If you have found this ebook to be of value, please feel free to direct others to to obtain their own copy 2010 Apple Valley Publications DISCLAIMER AND/OR LEGAL NOTICES: The information presented herein represents the view of the author. The report is for informational purposes only. While every attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this report, neither the author nor her partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions. Any offense to people, their faith life or organizations are unintentional. If professional counseling is needed, the services of a fully qualified professional should be sought. This report is not intended for use as a source of personal or spiritual advice.

3 3 Introduction So, did you uncover your personality type? Do you have a better picture of who you were created to be? What about your strengths? Did you discover some traits about yourself which you never really thought of as unique and positive aspects of your personality? I hope you are excited, I hope you are beginning to see the amazing, extraordinary person God created when He made you. What gifts and abilities are you going to start using to minister to the people who are in your life right now? Maybe you are already using your strengths to bear the fruit of God s love to others and didn t even realize you were already living out God s plan for your life in this season. Whichever situation you are in, I hope you are finding new encouragement and inspiration to continue to grow into the person God created you to be. Spiritual growth is a life-long, day by day discipline. When we make changes in our life and choose to grow in new habits, we have to renew that decision, that mindset, every day. Our whole goal with the 7 Steps to Spiritual Fitness is to create a foundation of a new mind, new habits, and new attitudes. Those attributes need to be protected, cultivated and practiced daily. Spiritual growth is only possible when we continually work to know and experience God more and more

4 4 If you want to get in shape physically you wouldn t go to the gym one day, do a 30 minute work out and say there, I m done, I ve exercised and become more fit. Yes, you would have improved your strength and stamina a tiny bit but you know there is more work to be done so you keep going to the gym. You also know that if you miss several days or even weeks of exercise, you will lose strength and stamina and have to work hard to catch back up. Your spiritual growth is exactly the same. These 7 steps have to become daily habits which we make a consistent part of our routine. Our minds are repeatedly bombarded with the worries and concerns of the world. Advertising, news reports, talk radio, web sites, cell phones and more all vie for our attention and our interest, keeping us away from the things of God. Spending our time and mental energy on the cares and temptations of the world is not going to help us become better Christians. Focusing our attention on wars, natural disasters or tragedies is not going to help us overcome bad habits or resolve the challenges in our own lives. Quite the opposite. What we feed our mind on is what we are going to get. Filling our mind with the things of the world will condition us to fall victim to the same woes, battles, and defeated attitudes of the world. Filling our minds with the things of God draws His blessings into our lives and it has to be a daily habit. I know you are here because you long to grow as His disciple. You are above average in your desire to draw closer to Him every day. To help you reach this goal, you ll find this week s lesson is a little bit longer than normal. I have so much to share with you, this is a jam packed week of spiritual growth! Let s look at growing in our experience of God, keeping our eyes on His truth, and walking in His blessings.

5 5 Part 1 Read Step #4 for Spiritual Fitness: increase in the knowledge of God. Colossians 1:10b Step 4 is found in pages of the core ebook, 7 Steps to Spiritual Fitness As it says in today s book reading knowledge of God is gained by experiencing Him. We experience Him in three ways: Acknowledging Him and His sovereignty in our lives Meditating on what is true Uncovering and sharing our gifts. We ll look at those in more detail in Part 2. The outflow of these three practices is His blessings pouring into and through our lives. Do you long to release the flow of His blessings and provision into your life? Those blessings are already in you in the form of the gifts, talents and abilities He created within you. Did you catch that? All of the restored relationships, emotional stability, spiritual maturity, financial blessings, and physical health you ve been yearning for are

6 6 available inside you already. The provision you need for your life is just waiting to be released in the form of the gifts you already possess. Those gifts are the tools God has provided to help you overcome those challenges in your life. The key is to follow these steps of Spiritual Fitness: 1. Learning to stay in constant communion with God 2. Walking with Him each day 3. Bearing the fruit He has designed you to carry in the form of your gifts and ministry to others 4. Increasing daily in your knowledge and experience of Him You will begin to see the fruit of your spiritual growth in all areas of your life! Part 2 Review Since you already know the first three steps to Spiritual Fitness, let s look at Step 4- three ways to experience God: Acknowledging God as sovereign This means submitting to His will and being mindful of His power, His divine guidance, and His provision. God has absolute authority over our lives and acknowledging that fact reminds us of His right to rule in our lives. It keeps us a little bit humble too! Acknowledging or accepting God as our Lord trains our mind to see Him as He really is the all-powerful, all knowing, all merciful creator and provider of all that is good. When we submit to God as the ruler over us, we grow in our knowledge of Him, because we have experienced Him as a king.

7 7 My friend Mary Beth grew in her knowledge of her oldest son Peter, when the family all went camping together for the first time. Mary Beth never realized how much her son knew about survival skills until she watched him build a fire using wet wood and no matches. She experienced and acknowledged his ability and increased her knowledge of Peter. If you discipline yourself to pay attention to what God is doing in your life and in the lives of those around you, you will grow in the knowledge of the Lord just as Mary Beth grew in her knowledge of the person her son was becoming. The second way to know God is by meditating on His works. We are to fix our minds on what is noble, pure, just, virtuous, and of good report according to Philippians 4:8. You will know Him by His works, as it says in John 14:11. Pay attention to what God is doing in the world and you will come to know Him. Are you focusing on the things God is doing? Or are you engrossed in the world? Remember in today s reading I mentioned doing a test to see how much negative and evil was in the daily news vs how many truly wonderful, godly and inspiring things were happening each day. The numbers of heartwarming, life affirming, God-inspired events was amazing. Yet, what do we post about on Facebook? What do we talk about with our friends? To what kinds of thoughts do we devote the most mental energy? The thoughts we allow into our brain act as food for our emotions and our emotions guide our actions. If you have strengthened your mind with thoughts of the goodness of God, you will be strengthened in your faith. Remember the good and true and pure and noble things God is doing and has done and you will be strengthened to act in faith stepping out to do those things you know He is calling you to do. All of those strengths and gifts you identified

8 8 early, given to you for the purpose of fulfilling your call? You can step out and do those in faith, not fear when all of your energy converges on the truth of God s power and provision in your life. The third way to know God is by discovering and using our gifts. As Pastor Rick Warren says in his book Purpose Driven Life: God deliberately shaped and formed you to serve him. What better way to know God than to know what He is asking us to do for Him? Christians are God s ambassadors on earth. An ambassador acts in the place of, and in the best interests of, the leader he represents. An ambassador has to know the heart, the intent, the very character of the sovereign ruler he or she is serving in order to properly carry out the desires of that ruler in a foreign country. We can know God by knowing His heart, His desire for His people. His desire is to have no one fall away, but that all men should know Him. He is equipping us to be part of that great commission teaching and sharing the good news with all people. As you learn about and use your gifts for the purpose God intended, you will also be getting your will in line with His. In last week s reading from Step 3 we talked about Jesus as the vine which nourishes us, His branches. When the branch is in complete connection with the vine, it knows the vine; it has intimacy with the vine. It bears the fruit it is intended to bear. The purpose God is calling you to fulfill is the part of His character that He wants you to reflect to the world. Since no one person can have all of the perfect characteristics of God, no one person can completely share all of God with the

9 9 world. It takes all of us, coming together and sharing our unique gifts to form a complete picture of Christ. So what are your unique gifts? You do have them, everyone does. Read on and learn how to find yours! Part 3 Write The result of getting spiritually fit is we get our lives in line with the plan and path God designed for us. We are filled with Him and walking with Him as well as learning to fulfill the purpose He put within us. The pursuit of our life purpose is a vital component to spiritual fitness. If we know what God put inside of us as gifts, talents and desires, and we know those things came from the Lord to be put to use in serving Him, then when we start using those gifts in the ministry of others we will have greater fellowship with our co-worker, Christ the Lord. So this week our assignment is to dig a little deeper into discovering what we were created for. There are several facets of our makeup, each of which is like a puzzle piece. As we identify each piece and begin to understand its function, we compile a complete picture of who we really are in God s eyes. The first piece is understanding our personality and the strengths which spring from our personality, which we did last week. The second piece is knowing our spiritual gifts. Your assignment this week is to read about Spiritual Gifts at this link. As you look over the 7 different gifts, which ones do you see in your own life? No cheating, go read that article now or you won t be able to complete the questions on the next page

10 10 Time to pull out your notebook! One way to pin down your gifts is to look for times and events when you have been operating in those gifts. Use the following questions to spark your thinking: 1. List your 10 biggest successes of the past 5 years 2. What where the 5 happiest or most fulfilling moments of the past 5 years? 3. What hobbies, jobs, or other activities have you done in the past 5 years that brought you joy? 4. My spouse or best friend would say I am good at: 5. Thinking about the 7 Spiritual Gifts of perceiving, teaching, administrating, serving, giving, compassion and exhortation, which of those gifts were you using during those successful, fulfilling and joyful times?

11 11 Part 4 Apply This week s application is two-fold: 1. Changing your input: What are you listening to, reading, and thinking about that draws your focus off God and His goodness? And what can you replace those with? 2. Applying your gifts: How can you start applying this understanding of spiritual gifts into your life and work? Changing your input If you are in the habit of listening to the news on the radio first thing in the morning, or watching the morning news shows, or if you spend time browsing the headlines on the internet, you are subconsciously filling your brain with negative, disturbing, and sometimes downright vile words and images. Determine today what you can read, watch or listen to instead and make provisions to do those things. Cancel the newspaper subscription. Find a Christian radio or TV station now and change make it a pre-set channel on your radio or TV. Search the internet for positive news stories and bookmark those websites for reading instead of the regular news sites. I do practice what I preach Great information and ideas are vital, but all of these lessons are for nothing if we don t put it into action. Several years ago we chose to cancel our cable TV subscription specifically to stop the flow of garbage into our home. We do not have any TV in our home. It is possible to live without it! Trust me, if anything important happens people will take it upon themselves to make sure you hear all about it. You won t miss anything and the benefits are unbeatable.

12 12 Apply your gifts Last week we talked about sharing our strengths. Now think about your spiritual gifts in combination with your strengths. Are you beginning to see a pattern? I have strong leadership strengths as part of my personality and a spiritual gift of teaching. I can teach in large groups, through writing and through speaking at seminars. Someone else with the same gift of teaching might be a quiet, people-person. Their gift of teaching may come out more as a one-onone mentor or coach. When you look at the variety of combination of personality types and add as a layer over that the combinations of spiritual gifts, you can begin to see why people are so complex and varied. You may also begin to see where you might have similar gifts as someone else, but because of your unique personality blend, you will express those gifts in a very different way. And that is perfectly okay! We were created to reflect a portion of God s unique character and to fulfill a purpose no one else can. We need to be different from one another. We all work together as a team, under the leadership of our Lord Jesus to complete His work on earth. Growing in the Lord, coming to an understanding of our purpose, gaining new insight into who we were created to be, leads us to a unique and individual relationship with the Lord; it is an intricate part of spiritual growth. Last week you thought about some ways to start applying your strengths to ministering to those around you. With your new understanding of your spiritual gifts, how can your gifts combine with your strengths to form a ministry that only you can do? When I say ministry, I m not necessarily talking about starting a soup kitchen or tutoring children in a homeless shelter, or even selling all of your possessions and

13 13 heading off to a missionary post in Peru. Quite often, before God lays a big dream like that on our hearts, he asks us to go through some training time by working for him right where we are. Your ministry could be something as simple as: share your gift of playfulness with your child employ your gift of empathy by being a good listener to your spouse call an overworked friend and offer to take her children for a couple of hours hand a flower to the receptionist at the pediatricians office give a compliment to someone you barely know at church send a gift certificate for the nearby coffee shop to a working mom arrange to teach a hobby or craft class at the senior center mail a card with a word of encouragement and thanks to your pastor offer to organize the supply closet in the church office Think of this as a treasure hunt. Brainstorm fun ways to anonymously share God s love with the people He has put in your life. Your gifts are meant to bless others and to bring joy to your life. You can find ways to bring that joy into every day. Previous lessons Lesson 1 click here Lesson 2 click here Lesson 3 click here

14 14 About the Author Susan is the CEO (Chief Encouraging Officer) at and the founder of LifeWorks Ministries. Susan is an author and speaker, member of the American Association of Christian Counselors, a certified personalities trainer and leadership coach. As a life and leadership counselor and as a mom, her job has always been to help others see and develop the potential within them. She is dedicated to equipping woman to uncover their unique gifts and discover how to live the life they were meant to live. Wouldn t it be refreshing to connect with someone who wants to listen to you, who has no agenda of their own except to encourage, support and equip you to find and live out your best life? Susan's goal and the vision of LifeWorks is to help others learn to keep their eyes on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, praiseworthy and of good report so that we may reap the rewards: a life of peace and blessings that flow from living life God's way. To learn more about how to live the life you were created for, visit her web site at and sign up to receive a free ebook Finding Your Perfect Fit. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable if anything is excellent or praiseworthy think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8