Spiritual Goals

Before you scroll down to today’s post I would like you to ask yourself some serious questions.

What are your spiritual goals?

Why are you following the faith you are, even if no faith at all?

What is God’s goal for you?

Is your spirituality based on wanting or needing to change something in your life?

How does life relate to your spiritual goals, what role is it playing?

Is your life a reflection of succeeding or failing in achieving these spiritual goals?

Philippians 3:10, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;”

Did any of you answer the questions above with answers like, ‘My goal is to have a better marriage, or to receive the blessings of God.’ How about a more noble answer like, ‘To preach the gospel, or be a minister?’ Is your faith because it was your parent’s faith? Is your goal to just make it to heaven, or even simply avoid hell? Perhaps you have a goal of learning about Christ so that you can teach about Him to others? Is your goal to live a sinless life? Is God’s goal for you to perhaps fulfill the great commission, to lead thousands to salvation?

I have some news for you. If your spiritual goal is anything other than knowing Christ and being in relationship with Him then you have set your goals far too low.

I first studied in depth Philippians 3:10 in reading T Austin-Sparks’ School of Christ while attending Ministry School. I thought that I understood it then. Some 17 years later I am just beginning to understand it. Regardless of what your spiritual goals are, God’s spiritual goal is that we would know Him. Not to know Him in some distant far off way. Not to only have an intellectual picture of Him, but to walk moment by moment in the awareness of His presence. To see Him clearer and clearer every day. “That I may know Him” Paul wrote.

Life is completely about knowing Him more. He comes into our life, walking to the very edge of His kingdom, the boundary between wholly His and utterly not and calls us. “Come,” He says. And if we lean in there is often the spiritual and sometime emotional euphoria that will always fade. Some flounder here looking to recreate the magic of His presence. Other dismiss it, but again and again He is constantly moving saying, “Come.” In a game that seems like hide and seek God is constantly at work moving away from that kingdom boarder where there is the violence (Matt 11:12), and He calls us to go deeper and deeper into the kingdom so that He can reveal more and more of Himself, that we may know Him. Not in some objective distant way, but subjectively first as slaves, then as friends, and finally as children. All the while using life to teach us when we are not in this pursuit of His face.

The fellowship of His sufferings is such a mischaracterization of the relationship. Because what the world calls suffering, what our bodies and emotions call suffering is not suffering at all. It really is nothing more than God helping us to overcome all of life’s distractions to discover Him, to be aware of Him in storm or in feasting. Our relationship conflicts are us, not them, being out of fellowship with God. They are us not knowing Him in the situation. Struggles of life are nothing; they are just life and an opportunity to know the fullness of Christ in His resurrection.

Feeding off the same inspiration Jim Spivey wrote, “One of my most important roles in life, a role that Jesus plays for me every day, is that of ‘purveyor of empowering new perspective,’ vs. that of ‘con-artist changer of conditions.’  Here me on this, my friends, whenever you are clamoring for improved circumstances or better performance by yourself or others (when your spiritual goal is to improve your life):  ‘your conditions are NEVER the problem, no matter how compelling they are; your RESISTANCE to them, while disconnected from Him, when they are here primarily for Him to use to help you see a bigger Truth, is the only problem, ever.’”

If your spiritual goal involves conditions, circumstances, saving the world, anything other than you and you alone knowing Christ in full living relationship then you are missing the glorious and wonderful truth of the gospel. The kingdom of God is a hand. It is inside you. It is calling out saying come in and meet Jesus face to face, and live in relationship. This is the perspective, the goal we must have. This is our individual journey, and in walking our individual journey of life with Christ we collectively murmurate and the will of God is accomplished on earth as in heaven. 

Spirit, Soul, & Body

1 Corinthians 15:45, “So also it is written, ‘The first MAN, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

I wanted to write today on Spirit, Soul, and Body because I find it a good introduction into what I think is going to be a be series of posts on Growing in Christ. In my post God is Light I said in passing that the spirit is energy, the soul is consciousness, and the body is mass. And this as it relates to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is true, but it is also true according to scripture.

If we first look at the spirit of man we see from the above scripture that Christ, the last Adam, is the one who brings life (energy) to that spirit. According to John 3: 6-7; salvation, or the process of being “born again”, is a rebirth of the spirit. Perhaps comparing this born again spirit is more like a home being connected to electricity for the first time. Paul in Colossians 1:13 says that we are transferred from a kingdom of darkness to a kingdom of His beloved Son. So the spirit, for those who have given their life to Christ is alive with the energy of God.

The body on the other hand has its own source of energy derived from being alive on the earth. The organs, blood, bones, muscles, skin, etc all work autonomously with or without God’s spirit. Instincts and genetic programming allow survival and function in the world. Hearts beat, brains think, emotions run all independent of both spirit and soul.

But the soul… now that is what God breathed into man when He created the first Adam. In the soul is consciousness. It is the soul that has the conscious connection between body and spirit. The soul is not intellectual capacity. That is the brain. But rather the soul houses are character and free will. It is the place where who we really are is found. It is what is and will be judged by Christ.

And so, in the context of this definition and relationship of spirit, soul, and body we find ourselves a living soul constantly making choices based on two competing forces. (Rom 8:5) The body is lazy, selfish, prideful, greedy, and under the curse and contamination of original sin. The spirit for those saved is connected to God. It is His life force, His energy, His communication, and even His kingdom that is growing inside us. And so here is life. In its simplest of godly purpose life is a conscious soul that daily, hourly, even moment by moment has a choice of choosing the desires of a body, or choosing the desires of the Spirit. Oh some times, perhaps even many times those desires are the same, but just as often the Spirit is in conflict with the body.

So to grow in Christ or for a more palatable term, spiritual growth is nothing more than choosing Spirit over body. And this path we will find in the coming post has a pattern. We will also find out that that pattern has very little to do with not sinning, and a whole lot to do with discovering Christ in a new and living way.

Here’s to growing in Him together.

As a side note. I have seen it argued that emotions are in the soul. If that is the case does it mean a woman with PMS really has a crazy soul? Does it mean someone with hypothyroid, a cause of depression, has a depressed soul?

For those who think intellect is in the soul. Does it mean the mentally handicapped have less of a soul? Does it mean diminished mental capacity means less capacity to be conscious of God?