Disciplined Spiritual Life

Last weekend we had the Men’s camp of our church. It was a great time of fellowship with people, time with God, learning from the word of God, some good discussion etc. It was good to be away from the busy crowded cities and being in a lake shore. It again proves the fact that when we are in places like this we can relate more and praise God for his wonderful creation.

We had Dr.P.U.Paulson from UBS, Pune, India as our resource person and it was a great blessing to have him. We learned lot of things from this camp and I would like to write about it in the coming days here. I will be writing about Christian Leadership, forgiveness, Christian devotion, predestination etc.

To start up I would like to deal with some thing which God taught me- Disciplined Spiritual Life

Many times we see that we are so much busy with the things of this world that we don’t have a disciplined spiritual life. We reach office in time, we keep our doctors appointment, car service appointment etc. But when it comes to matters regarding God we fail. We will reach office in time but not our church. We will eat food everyday but sometimes we miss Bible reading. We keep our appointments with friends and meet them at correct time but we rarely have a fixed time for prayer. We will make sure that we reach the fitness club in time, reach the ground in time so that we can start the match in time but no such discipline when in come to our spiritual matters.

One of the reason is that we don’t see the immediate consequence. Lets think that we have a test today and the result will be known today itself. We will pray about it becuase we are going to see the consequence today. But we don’t pray and read the bible because we lose nothing if we don’t do it today. But we should understand that the main reason behind it is that we don’t have hunger for God and somehow we have pushed Him down in our priority list. Most of the time we do all the things according to priority and we never reach till that point were we could spent some time with God. Don’t you feel that the world has become so busy and we are also part of it and we are not realizing how our life is going? We even don’t have the time to sit and think about our life.

Summary is that we don’t have a disciplined spiritual life. But in other areas we are forced to have discipline because we will see the consequence immediately. We reach office in time because we will have to. We reach a shop before it is closed because we know the consequence of reaching there after it is closed.

Now think for a moment-Do we have discipline in spiritual matters? Many of us cannot wake up in the morning and pray. But lets say tomorrow you boss asks you to report at 5:00 AM. What will you do? You will be there by 4:55 AM because you don’t have other options.

Now I am sure that you want to improve in this area. So what to do. Let me give you some practical ideas that I learned.

1. Have a fixed time when you will spend time with God.
2. Start with small target. It can be 15 Min. but it should be fixed for everyday.
3. Make sure you follow that. Lets say you fixed 6:30 AM - 6:45 AM. Now imagine that you were in a pray meeting whole night and just slept at 6:00 AM. But still make sure that you spend 6:30-6:45 with God. What I mean is let that be your priority.
4. Once you feel you are settled with the 15 min. then increase the time.
5. Don’t allow any other things of the world to take priority during this time.
6. Try to avoid activities in your life, which can affect your Spiritual Life.
7. Never try to postpone your time. Don’t say that today is Saturday so I will shift my time to 8:30 to 8:45 instead of 6:30-6:45.
8. If you can try to give small punishment to yourself. Lets say you will decide that I will skip my breakfast if I don’t spend time with God or it can be anything. What it will do is that it will remind you whole day and motivate you for next day. One of the best way to discipline yourself is that take a decision not to eat anything unless you have spent time with God (This is just a suggestion. Only do it if you can).
9. Above all pray to God to give you the grace to maintain a disciplined spiritual life.

What I have written is few practical things. But all this will fail if you don’t have a hunger for God. You can’t eat food unless you fell hungry and if you don’t feel hungry then you have some problem and you need to consult a doctor. In the same way if you don’t have spiritual hunger then something is wrong with you.

Every day our father in heaven is waiting to listen our voice and talk to us. But many times we just disappoint him by just ignoring because of our other priorities. From today don’t disappoint him. He gave his only Son Jesus for us. He asks nothing else from us but a close walk with him.

Will we decide to have a disciplined life?

Have a Vision for your life

Pro.29:18

“When people do not accept divine guidance, they run wild….” (NLT)

“Where there is no vision, the people perish………”(KJV)

“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint…..”(NIV)

It is very important for a person to have a vision about his life. Many times we see that people are confused. They want to take some decision but they are not sure about it. Many try to do many things and end up fustrated because they do not find joy in doing it.

But if a person has a Vision or divine guidance about his life then things can be different. God has a plan for every person. Paul says in Ephesians 1:4

“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight”

So even before you were born God has seen you for a purpose in this world. Thats what he told Jeremiah 1:5 ”Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

But many times we don’t pray or seek God’s divince guidance for our life. But if we sit in the presence of God then He will surely revel his plan for our life and give us a vision. Then it will be very easy to take decisions in our life as we know what is God’s will for our life.

A classic example is that of Joshua & Caleb. You can read about it in Numbers 13 & 14. They were sure about what God wanted through life- Land of Cannan. But other 10 people who went out to spy were not sure and hence we see that they lost the promise of God. We see a generation wandering in wilderness for 40 years. Out of all the people who were above 20yrs only 2-Joshua & Caleb entered Cannan the promised land. Joshua led the conquest and Caleb in the end got Horeb as God promised him.

Let me give is three benefits of having a vision in your life:-

1. Vision will bring Faith
2. Vision will inspire Courage
3. Vision will result in Action

Can God Die?

An interesting question asked by some people is can God die. This question is asked in respect to death of Jesus on cross. There are few group of people who go out and confuse people. I agree that its a vital question. So I want to add something which Mr.Sudhakar Mondithoka said in response to this question. I have his blog link added. This is his response:-

“It is an important one that we have faced many times in the past. My answer will begin with a question: What do you mean by God and what is this God like? If we know the answers to these questions, then the answer to your question is obvious. Let me explain. God is, by definition, non-physical/spiritual, infinite and eternal - beginningless and endless. So talking about the end of the endless one does not make sense. So God, in His divinity, can never die and the question of God’s death does not even arise (it is a non-question, a question that does not make sense).
But when we talk about Jesus, we need to understand the identity of Jesus properly: He is God-incarnate, that is, God who added to Himself humanity without ceasing to be God and entered human history, in flesh and blood. So Jesus is both Divine (God) and human (Man) and it is in His humanity that he died and there is absolutely no problem here.
For example, think of yourself. If I ask you, “What is your weight?” you will say, “Seventy Kilos or whatever it is.” But if I ask you, “What is the weight of your soul?” what will you think of me? Each of us is a composite of body-soul and certain things about us relate to the soul (the non-physical part) and certain others relate to the body (the physical part). Weight, color, height, etc., relate to the body and not the soul. In the same way, when we talk about Jesus, we have to understand that certain things relate to his Divinity (no possibility of dying, no hunger, no thirst, etc.,) and certain other things relate to his Humanity (his dying on the cross, his hunger, thirst, tiredness, sleeping, etc). There is absolutely no problem at all.”

He also suggests reading few articles which will give you a better understanding about this.

1. The Two Natures of Jesus - Compatible or Incompatible? (The Divine-Human Interface in Jesus)http://www.mondithokas.com/docs/

Writing_Apologia_The_Divine_Human_Interface_in_JC_1.doc

1. Life After Death: Resurrection or Reincarnation? http://www.mondithokas.com/docs/

Life_after_Death_Reincarnation_or_Resurrection_2.doc

1. Incarnation: Theological and Apologetic Issues http://www.mondithokas.com/docs/

Incarnation_the_Need_and_Necessity__VJ_Nov[1]._05.doc

I hope it will help you in getting an answer to the question.