Posted on 02/18/2020 5:10:16 AM PST by metmom
"This I pray" (Phil. 1:9).
Your prayers reveal the level of your spiritual maturity.
As we come to our study of godliness in Philippians 1:9-11, we note that this passage is a prayer. Typically, Paul's prayers reflected his concern that his readers would mature spiritually. That is impossible without prayer because spiritual growth depends on the Holy Spirit's power, which is tapped through prayer.
Prayer is so vital that Jesus instructed His disciples to pray at all times (Luke 18:1). Paul commands us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). Peter said we should be "of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer" (1 Pet. 4:7).
Scripture gives many other commands to pray, but the true test of your spirituality is your compulsion to pray, not simply your obedience to commands. As a Christian you exist in a spiritual realm in which prayer is as natural as breathing is in the natural realm. Just as atmospheric pressure exerts force on your lungs, compelling you to breathe, so your spiritual environment compels you to pray. Resisting either brings devastating results.
The more you see life through God's eyes, the more you are driven to pray. In that sense your prayers reveal the level of your spiritual maturity. Paul prayed with urgency day and night because he shared God's love for His people and His concern for their spiritual maturity.
Examine your own prayers. Do you pray from a sense of duty or are you compelled to pray? Do you pray infrequently or briefly? Do your prayers center on your own needs or the needs of others? Do you pray for the spiritual maturity of others? Those important questions indicate the level of your spiritual maturity and give guidelines for making any needed changes in your pattern of prayer.
Suggestions for Prayer
Thank God for the privilege and power of prayer. If you have neglected prayer or if your prayers have been centered on yourself rather than others, confess your sin and ask God to give you a sense of holy urgency in praying as you should. Is there someone for whom you should be praying more consistently? For Further Study
Read Daniel 6:1-28.
What was Daniel's pattern of prayer? What accusation did the political leaders bring against Daniel? What was the king's attitude toward Daniel? How did God honor Daniel's faith?
Studying God’s Word ping
Oh, MY!
What if I die and I am found immature?
What happens if I don’t “grow in my prayer life”?
Will I be go to Hell?
Do I pray enough, or hard enough or m”maturely” enough to make God happy with me?
A teaching of despair.
I dont mean this disrespectfully at all and know you are being sarcastic but a thought crossed my mind when I read your reply.
The thought was if we dont mature and grow and lead others to Christ or at the least be a light in a dark world, i think the people that we could have or should have influenced but didnt will be cast into the lake of fire and we will be ashamed of ourselves.
:: The thought was if we dont mature and grow and lead others to Christ or at the least be a light in a dark world, i think the people that we could have or should have influenced but didnt will be cast into the lake of fire and we will be ashamed of ourselves. ::
“Mature and grow”?
What’s your standard?
What’s God’s standard?
How do you measure up?
“lead others to Christ”?
I’ll need a scripture citation referencing Christ’s ^command^ for this actiivity.
Do WE really “lead others to Christ”?
Is the implication there, that if we don’t interact with others, they will not know Christ?
Is that our job as Christians?
What’s God’s standard?
How do you measure up?
“the people that we could have or should have influenced but didnt will be cast into the lake of fire”
Can you provide me the scripture that says WE have the authority to damn others to Hell just because we didn’t influence them ENOUGH?
What is God’s standard?
How do you measure up?
For it is by GRACE you have been saved, through FAITH, and this not of yourselves it is the GIFT of God-not by works, so that no one can boast.
Sola Gratia
Sola Fides
Sola Logos (Scriptura)
I pray you would study to doctrines of Justification and Sanctification. That will answer your question.
OF Justification:
But since justification is obtained through the free promise, it follows that we cannot justify ourselves. Otherwise, wherefore would there be need to promise? [And why should Paul so highly extol and praise grace?] For since the promise cannot be received except by faith, the Gospel, which is properly the promise of the remission of sins and of justification for Christ’s sake, proclaims the righteousness of faith in Christ, which the Law does not teach. Nor is this the righteousness of the Law. For the Law requires of us our works and our perfection. But the Gospel freely offers, for Christ’s sake, to us, who have been vanquished by sin and death, reconciliation, which is received, not by works, but by faith alone. This faith brings to God not confidence in one’s own merits, but only confidence in the promise, or the mercy promised in Christ. This special faith, therefore, by which an individual believes that for Christ’s sake his sins are remitted him, and that for Christ’s sake God is reconciled and propitious, obtains remission of sins and justifies us. And because in repentance, i.e. in terrors, it comforts and encourages hearts it regenerates us, and brings the Holy Ghost that then we may be able to fulfil God’s Law, namely, to love God, truly to fear God, truly to be confident that God hears prayer, and to obey God in all afflictions; it mortifies concupiscence, etc. Thus, because faith, which freely receives the remission of sins, sets Christ, the Mediator and Propitiator, against God’s wrath, it does not present our merits or our love [which would be tossed aside like a little feather by a hurricane]. This faith is the true knowledge of Christ, and avails itself of the benefits of Christ, and regenerates hearts, and precedes the fulfilling of the Law. And of this faith not a syllable exists in the doctrine of our adversaries. Hence we find fault with the adversaries, equally because they teach only the righteousness of the Law and because they do not teach the righteousness of the Gospel, which proclaims the righteousness of faith in Christ.
Of Sanctification:
But Christ was given for this purpose, namely, that for His sake there might be bestowed on us the remission of sins, and the Holy Ghost to bring forth in us new and eternal life, and eternal righteousness [to manifest Christ in our hearts, as it is written John 16:15: He shall take of the things of Mine, and show them unto you. Likewise, He works also other gifts, love, thanksgiving, charity, patience, etc.]. Wherefore the Law cannot be truly kept unless the Holy Ghost be received through faith. Accordingly, Paul says that the Law is established by faith, and not made void; because the Law can only then be thus kept when the Holy Ghost is given. 12] And Paul teaches 2 Cor. 3:15 sq., the veil that covered the face of Moses cannot be removed except by faith in Christ, by which the Holy Ghost is received.
The Apology of the Augsburg Confession
-Melancthon, et. al.
14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants[a] and entrusted to them his property.
15 To one he gave five talents,[b] to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away.
16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more.
17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more.
18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money.
19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them.
20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’
21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.[c] You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’
23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’
26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
The Early Church fathers: Origen, Augustine, et.al.
The man on a Journey is Christ. He returns on The Last Day.
The talents are His Word; Scripture, doctrine.
The servants are His disciples (pastors).
The “interest” is the growth of the Word on Earth (expanding the church).
The disciples who grew the Word by preaching proper doctrine, derived from Scripture.
The disciple who is lazy or indecisive doesn’t preach the doctrine and HIDES the Gospel is dealt with swiftly and severely.
Sorry, this is a parable about the power of Scripture, the expansion of the church through maintaining the doctrine and the expectations of pastors.
Both are too wordy and the Sanctification creed is wrong. Distill it down to one or two sentences.
Then you will see how spiritual maturity isn't a salvation issue. It is actually the evidence of sanctification.
Sorry, I can’t discuss the Holy Things of God with someone who is so arrogant as you.
Would you tell the Holy Spirit the Scriptures are too wordy and that He ought to distill it down to a few sentences.
You have exhi9bited the quintessential error of Gospel Reductionism. That is, that all of doctrine can be reduced to a very catch-phrases.
And, please don’t insult me by assuming my knowledge of Scripture is shallow. I have more years in doctrinal studies than most MDiv.
I’m not the one that cut and pasted. With all your studies, you didn’t seem to learn where spiritual maturity fits into sanctification. You didn’t demonstrate it either. I was just trying to help.
I believe OSAS because 1John 3:9 assures the believer that God's Seed of the Holy Spirit abides in our new born from above human spirit. In the snatching away event the fleshy soul will be discarded for a new behior mechanism not prone to si, accompanying a new glorified body like that which Jesus now has ... 1John instructs us that when He appears we shall see Him as He is because we shall have been made like Him.
Sorry for the typos, big fingers but little keys on a cell phone.
I see...
Call no man father..
An elitist lectures someone about maturity.
Riiiiiight.
Of the things I learned in my years of study is that in worship, pray and Christian life, we say back to God was He has told us. To be asked to distill and explain, in my own words, asks me to put myself in God’s place, to lift my studies of God’s Word above the Scripture. I can’t do that. Nor should you put stock in Gospel Reductionism.
I also learned that one should not “re-invent the wheel”. I recite the Apostles’ Creed daily, as it was written and memorized. I don’t distill it into my own words for brevity or convenience sake. The same is done with doctrinal questions. Justification and Sanctification have been explained exactly as I posted them since The death of St. John. I reproduced them because I cannot (1) refute them and (2) explain them any better than what is found in the Apology.
Since you are busy “shooting the messenger” while saying the words reproduced from the Apology are incorrect with out explanation, please point out in what way they are wrong. I will stand with Luther and say, “Unless you can prove these articles are in error ^^by Scripture and human reason^^, I will not recant.”
Go ahead, prove Martin Luther wrong...
Eisegesis is no man’s strong suit.
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