In this episode of the Deeper Dive Podcast by the OC Church of Christ, Robert Carrillo continues the 'Spirituality 101' series with part two of 'Introduction to Spirituality.' Robert emphasizes the importance of growing spiritually by getting to know God better and understanding ourselves. He provides insights on scriptural wisdom, Paul's prayers for spiritual wisdom and revelation, and discusses various spiritual practices such as Bible reading, prayer, meditation, and more. Join us as we explore how to live a life led by the Spirit and deepen our relationship with God.

00:00 Introduction to the Deeper Dive Podcast

00:41 Continuing the Spirituality 101 Series

01:41 Paul's Prayer for Spiritual Wisdom

03:09 Understanding the Eyes of the Heart

03:36 The Hope and Power for Believers

04:28 Personal Reflections on Spiritual Growth

06:55 The Mystery of God's Wisdom

09:51 The Danger of Spiritual Stagnation

14:08 Walking by the Spirit

18:32 Practical Steps for Spiritual Growth

23:30 Spiritual Practices and Disciplines

25:43 Conclusion and Resources

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OC Church of Christ

Welcome to the Deeper Dive Podcast

brought to you by the OC Church of Christ.

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The Deeper Dive Podcast is about going

deeper into God's word, learning new

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insights and taking a fresh look at

the verses that impact our daily lives.

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Today's episode is part two to

The "Introduction to Spirituality"

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from our series, "Spirituality

101" by Robert Carrillo.

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So get your scuba gear and

let's dive deep into God's word.

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Here's Robert Carrillo.

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Robert: Hello everybody, Robert

Carrillo here, and we're continuing

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in our Spirituality 101 series.

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I want to thank you for taking the time

and making this a priority in your life

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to grow spiritually, to look into these

things and, uh, which I believe will be

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hugely rewarding and enrich your walk

with God, your, your discipleship, your

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following of Jesus, and And, and growth in

spirituality and just helping you, helping

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us all to become more spiritual people

and more aware of God and his spirit.

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So this is a introduction to spirituality,

uh, part B, uh, the first one.

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So if you have not heard the first one,

Please go back and listen to the first

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one because these come consecutively.

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And generally that's true.

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Some of the later classes will

be topical and you can just

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dive right on, right on in.

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But this one is important is laying

a foundation that our foundation

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is biblical, it's scriptural, it's

spiritually bound to the truth, right?

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So Ephesians chapter 1 verse 17.

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He says, I keep asking the God of our

Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, I

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keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus

Christ, the Glorious Father, may give

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you the spirit of wisdom and revelation,

so that you may know Him better.

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This was Paul's prayer, his prayer

was that God would give us the

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spirit of wisdom and revelation.

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In other words, that He helps us to

be wise, but also to be able to see

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things, the things to be revealed to us.

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That we could see.

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Greater things, that we could see Him,

that we could see His power at work,

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that we could see the Spirit moving,

and understand things, deeper things

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of God, the, the, the, the kingdom

of God that's hidden like a treasure.

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Recognize the pearl of great value.

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Understand that it may be small as a

mustard seed, but it will grow, that we

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would see and understand these things.

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That's Paul's prayer for us, so that you

may know Him better, and and so much more.

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Really what the heart of

spiritual development, spiritual

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formation, uh, seeking to grow

spiritually is knowing God better.

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And what goes hand in hand with

that is knowing ourselves better.

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In verse 18 he says, I pray that the

eyes of your heart may be enlightened

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in order that you may know the

hope to which you have been called,

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right, to which he has called you.

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Okay, the eyes of our

heart, what does that mean?

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Think about that.

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The eyes of our hearts, you know, what

we see and feel, what we recognize,

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what we, what we are aware of that

impacts us, that changes or affects us.

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How we think, how we feel,

how we live our lives, right?

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And he says, I pray that the eyes

of your heart may be enlightened

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in order that you may know the

hope To which he has called you.

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He wants us to know the hope.

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We've got so much hope as Christians

We have so much hope as disciples

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of Jesus to, to, to, of what, what

the future is going to bring, what

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God is revealing to us, what he's

showing us, how he's helping us.

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You know, I remember as a baby Christian,

I remember I would see people that had

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been in the church for two or three or

four years, and I would just be in awe

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of them, their scripture knowledge.

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their knowledge of the Bible and their

ability to just pray and have these deep

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prayers and, and, and I just thought, my

gosh, there's so much more like Jesus.

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I'm going to become more

and more like Jesus.

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And I was thinking, man, in 10 years,

I'm going to be walking on water.

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I was just so excited.

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And yeah, maybe a little naive.

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I'm not walking on water 38 years later.

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But have I grown?

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Yes, I've grown a lot.

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Do I have more to grow?

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Yes, just like when I

was a young Christian.

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I mean, I would honestly say to you, I

can honestly say to you that I am just

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as excited about what I'm learning today

as I was my first week as a Christian.

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I'm learning so much about God, I'm

learning so much about His Spirit,

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I'm learning how to listen to Him,

how to walk with Him, how to be aware

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of Him, how to see God in everything.

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And it's changing me, it's

changing my heart, it's changing

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how I think, and which are very

much changing the way I feel.

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About things, especially valuable in

a time where the world is so full of

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trouble and that trouble is knocking on

everybody's door and, and, and the value

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of being happy, being able to have peace.

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So, and getting to know God, but

getting to know the hope we have.

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And he says, he says to which

he has called you the riches

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of his glorious inheritance.

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In of his glorious inheritance

in his Holy people.

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Right?

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The people that he has set

aside to be his people.

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And his incomparably great power.

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for us who believe, right?

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Us who know us, who have faith in

him, who, who believe, but it's more

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than just the word believe this.

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I, I think the English translation

to the word belief, we just honestly,

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we don't have a word powerful enough

to, to translate the Hebrew concept

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of MNA or even pistos in Greek.

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We don't, we don't have that a word that

really Tells you what all that means.

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That those who rely on God, those

who trust God, those who acknowledge

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God, those who are deeply aware of

God, that's what's packed in this.

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Those who believe, right?

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That power is the same as the

mighty as the mighty strength.

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I mean, I love that the mighty

strength, the mighty power

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of God that we have access.

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So, but here's the thing is, is, is this

is what knowing him better ushers us into.

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And so what spiritual Spirituality

has everything to do with just

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getting to know God better.

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Building that relationship with Him.

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Building your connection with Him.

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Which opens the door and

unleashes to so much more in life.

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And, and I think right now, honestly,

We're going through so much in this world.

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And, and we're, we're, I mean,

nobody's escaping challenge right now.

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We're all being challenged

in different ways.

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How valuable is it to be able to draw

strength from God, to be able to tap

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into this, this, this, Mighty strength

that he talks about here in Ephesians

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chapter 1 in 1st Corinthians 2 Paul

talks about says we do however speak a

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message Of wisdom among the mature but

not the wisdom of this age or the rulers

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of this age who are coming to nothing

This is what we we have a message of

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wisdom of insight of understanding,

but it's it's not what the world's

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teaching It's not what the world thinks.

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It's not what the world is saying.

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It's got nothing to do with this

world or this age It's he says no we

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declare God's wisdom in a mystery that

has been hidden in that God destined

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for our glory before time began.

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This is a very cool passage because

he talks about the mystery of

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God and the truth is We we're,

we, we don't know a whole, know

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a whole lot about God's mystery.

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Obviously it's mysterious, right?

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Um, we tend to just shy away

from anything mysterious.

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We wanna know what we can know for sure

and what we can quantify and measure

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and be rely on and et cetera, et cetera.

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God, there's a great mystery around

God that he is revealing things to us.

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We opened that curtain when we were

baptized, when we became Christians.

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And we began learning and learning,

and that learning should never stop.

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Because there's always more and

more that God is teaching us.

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And he says, none of us, uh, the

rulers of this age understood it.

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For if they had, they would have

crucified, they wouldn't not

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have crucified the Lord of Glory.

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If they had any idea who Jesus was, if

they had any idea The, the, the, the, what

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was happening spiritually in this world

that would have never crucified Jesus.

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He says, however, as it is written, What

no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,

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and what no human mind has conceived,

the things God has prepared for those

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who love Him, these are the things

God has revealed to us by His Spirit.

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The Spirit searches all things,

even the deep things of God.

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And the main thing I want to point out

here, there's a lot we could talk about

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here, but the main thing I want to point

out is that God is revealing things to us.

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He's showing us things.

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through his spirit.

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These are things that are

only understood spiritually.

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They're only spiritually

discern, discerned.

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So if you're not spiritual, you're

not reading the Bible, you're

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not praying much, you're not,

you're just not going to get it.

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You're not going to understand it.

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And your friend who, you know, that

doesn't believe in God and everything,

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This is way over their head.

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And, and, and they need just to start

out with the real basic teachings

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of what is right and what is true.

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And if not, they'll never get it.

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They'll never understand these things.

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They'll walk right over

the treasure in the field.

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They'll discard the peril of

great value because they won't

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recognize the value of it.

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And it even happens to Christians

that get stunted in our growth.

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It can happen to anybody.

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You know, and, and I would even say

it happens to everybody at one level.

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There's times where I just got stunted

and my quiet times got boring and

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my relationship with God got boring

and it really became about, about

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discipline, you know, about making

myself read and making myself pray.

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I wasn't excited about it anymore.

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I wasn't, I wasn't excited

about spending time with God.

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And, and that was a problem that I

was able to identify and change and

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work on my relationship with God,

work on my level of spirituality.

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It happens to lots of Christians.

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Just like it can happen to a marriage,

it can happen to a friendship, it

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can happen to roommates, it can

happen to best friends, it can

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happen to our relationship with God.

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And, and so we have to be continually

growing and pushing ourselves to learn

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more about God, to grow spiritually in our

ability to understand things spiritually.

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Just because somebody's in the

church a long time does not

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mean they're spiritually mature.

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It does not mean that they're

growing, that they're advancing.

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In fact, there's this strange

thing called petrified wood.

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In Arizona, there's a whole forest,

and it's called the petrified forest.

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And it's just, all you see is rocks.

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But if you pick up the rocks,

you realize that There were once,

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they were once living organisms.

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It was bark from a tree, or it's a

piece of wood that turned into a rock.

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It still looks like wood, it has grains

like wood, and if you glued it all back

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together, it would look like a tree, but

it is not, because it has no life in it.

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It has no Zoe in it.

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And Jesus came giving us life.

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Life, but if we're not growing,

we can become like petrified wood

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where we're just, we look like a

tree, but we're not growing anymore.

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In first Corinthians three,

one, he gives us this warning.

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He says, brothers and sisters, I

could not address you as people who

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live by the spirit, but as people who

are still worldly, mere infants in

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Christ, I give you milk, not solid

food for you were not ready for it.

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Indeed, you are still not ready.

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You are still worldly.

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For since there is jealousy and

quarreling among you, Are you not worldly?

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Are you not acting like mere humans?

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You know, Paul was rebuking

the church in Corinth because

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they weren't growing anymore.

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They got all excited.

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They got baptized.

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They were all filled

with zeal and excitement.

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And then they just didn't grow.

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And so he has to treat them

like infants in Christ again.

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And he has to teach them the same thing.

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The book of Hebrews, give us a warning

about not getting, being immature.

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When you've been around a long time,

the truth is what happens to somebody

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that stops growing spiritually?

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They just become more and more religious

and they become very religious.

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And the truth is being

religious is very unattractive.

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And in fact, if you look at who

did Jesus argue with and fight

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with, You read the Gospels, it's

always with the religious leaders.

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Who had Jesus crucified?

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It wasn't really the Romans.

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I mean, they're the ones that

physically did it, but who incited it?

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It was the religious leaders.

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Religiosity and being religious, it's

gotten to a point in our world where

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the world won't tolerate it at all.

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The world can't stand religious people.

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But that's not the same as being a

spiritual person, as being a person who

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walks with God, a person who follows

Jesus closely, who's led by the Spirit.

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You know, religious people follow rules,

they tend to be very judgmental, they tend

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to not want to change, they hang on to

the past, back in the day we did this and

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we did that, and they don't want to, you

know, they become, you know, petrified.

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They become like petrified wood.

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They become solid, unmolding, unchanging.

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Spiritual people are always growing

and dynamic and they're changing

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and they're evolving more and

more into the likeness of Jesus.

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We got a class coming up about in

transformation and all about that.

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Spiritual people are constantly evolving

and that's incredibly important.

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Paul rebukes, uh, the Corinthians

for being, staying infantile.

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We don't want to stay infantile.

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The writer of Hebrews warns the

Christians that they're being, that

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they're immature and by now they

should have been way more advanced.

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In other words, there's an

expectation of growth, right?

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In Galatians 5, 16 he says, so I say,

Walk by the Spirit, and you will not

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gratify the desires of the flesh.

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For the flesh desires what is

contrary to the Spirit, and the

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Spirit what is contrary to the flesh.

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They are in conflict with each other, so

that you are not to do whatever you want.

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But if you are led by the

Spirit, You're not under the law.

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So he he he Paul gives the Galatians

and you know, Paul talks a lot here

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about spirituality and Galatians It's a

major topic about being truly spiritual

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people versus people who are religious

that whole That tension between being a

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religious person and being a spiritual

person is very clear in the book of

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Galatians You know, he he rebukes them.

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He said you foolish Galatians

You started out spiritually

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motivated and you became worldly.

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You became fleshly, really.

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You became religious, basically, that

you trying to win your own salvation

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by what you do and what you don't do.

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And, and that kind of stuff, instead

of allowing yourself to be led by the

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spirit, he says, walk by the spirit.

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You know, what does that mean?

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That means live your life

according to the Spirit of God.

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And well, how do we know that?

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Robert, we'll talk about that in a minute.

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But, but it has a lot to do with what we

learn from the scriptures and how we let

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the scriptures change us and impact us.

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Our prayer times, our, our

listening to God, our, work.

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Continual conversation with God, you know

I think one of the one of the reasons

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why Michelle and I's marriage has found

so much success So we I mean it isn't

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because we didn't have challenges and it

isn't because we didn't disagree about

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stuff It isn't because we're exactly the

same because we are totally opposite,

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but we connect every day We share hearts.

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We share our struggles.

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We share our love.

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We share our passion We we share with

each we share our hearts with each

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other every day You We talk, well,

maybe not every day, but most days,

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you know, and, and, and that's a

continual pattern of our relationship.

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So our relationship just gets deeper

and richer and deeper and richer.

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Same thing needs to happen with God.

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The same thing needs to happen with our

relationships in the church, that they

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should continually be getting deeper and

deeper, but you have to live that way.

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And that's living by the

spirit, walking in the spirit.

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And he says, and he says, if you are led

by the spirit, You're not under the law.

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In other words, you know, I mean there's

a whole lot there that we don't have time

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to tension between the law and the spirit.

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But, but what I really want to just draw

the focus on right now is walking in

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the spirit and being led by the spirit.

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What is the spirit leading you to?

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What is he trying to Convert

you to or change in your heart.

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What is he trying to show you and How

is he want you to grow if you thought

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about that if you were sit down and

write a list of what does the spirit?

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Of God want me to grow in what

does the spirit of God want me to

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know better or understand better?

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What is it when I read the

scriptures stop and ask yourself?

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What is he telling me here?

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Not just what does it say, and who

was the audience, and what year

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was it written, and what's the,

what's the hermeneutics behind it?

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Okay, great, but more importantly,

what is God telling me here?

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What is he showing me here?

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That's what spirituality is all about.

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So we read in Romans 8, back, and

we've read this before, but he says,

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God raised Jesus from death, and if

God's Spirit lives in you, He will

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also give life to your bodies that die.

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Yes, God is the one who raised Christ

from death and he will raise you to

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life through his spirit living in you.

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Through how?

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How does he do all this?

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Through his spirit living in you.

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You realize you have the

spirit of God in you?

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I want you to think

about that for a second.

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The spirit of God is in you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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He really is.

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Are you listening to him?

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Are you aware of him?

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Are you paying attention?

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That's what transformation, formation,

spiritual development is all about,

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is getting better in tune with that.

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And that's where we're going.

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We're going to be talking specific.

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But I can say this, I can say this now.

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It's about Bible reading, memorizing

scripture, prayer, meditating

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on his word, listening to God,

practice, practice, practice.

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It's about constantly

practicing what we're reading.

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Read the Bible.

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What did you read that you don't do?

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How can you start doing it?

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That's giving yourself

over to the Spirit of God.

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And we say, well, do you mean like

the Spirit talking like I hear voices?

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No, reading the scriptures.

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Sometimes you will get thoughts

in your mind, and sometimes

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they'll be very clear from God.

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And sometimes you will know something

is and the way you can check it

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because there's also evil spirits Is

by does it line up with the scriptures?

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Does it line up with what jesus did?

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but it's being aware of that in acts

chapter 4 says In verse 31 after they

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prayed the place where they were meeting

was shaken And they were all filled

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with the holy spirit and spoke the

word of god boldly Make no mistake.

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It was the holy spirit that

move the church forward.

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How much will the church move forward

if the Holy Spirit is being ignored?

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If we're not paying

attention to the Holy Spirit?

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Not much.

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Even Jesus couldn't perform many miracles

because of their lack of faith, right?

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What does a lack of faith do?

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It makes you ignore the Holy Spirit.

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It makes you ignore God.

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It makes you read the scriptures,

but you get nothing out of it.

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It's just boring.

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It's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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It doesn't change you.

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But when we're learning to pay attention,

and that's what meditation is, is

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you're learning to pay attention, to

contemplate, to think about what is

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the saying, what is it saying to me?

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What is it saying to my life?

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What am I being called to do?

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And allowing God to change you.

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praying before you read your Bible.

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God, speak to me.

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Show me father.

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Change me.

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Change my heart, God.

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Give God your heart.

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Tell him, get on your knees

and say, God, here's my heart.

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Do whatever you want with it.

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I give my life to you.

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I give my body to you.

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I give my soul, my spirit, my mind,

my heart, everything to you, God.

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Tell him that.

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And ask Him to guide you along.

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And He will.

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There's this trinity here that's behind

all of, all of what spirituality is.

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It's prayer, conversing, dialoguing,

sharing, connecting with God.

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On even a vocal level.

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A mind level.

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Sharing and speaking to God.

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How much time we sit and

just think about God.

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Amen.

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Thank Him.

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It's journaling, writing down

everything you're thankful to God for.

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I challenge you to do it.

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Write down, journal in a piece of

paper five things you're grateful

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to God before you were five.

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Five things before you were ten.

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Five things in your teens.

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Five things as a young person.

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It will change you.

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It will change your heart.

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It will change your mind.

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It will make you more connected to God.

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I guarantee you.

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Do this every day.

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The word is another one.

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Just reading and stopping.

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And there's a fancy term you're

going to hear Lectio Divina.

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It's becoming this popular thing

that people do at church where

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they go over scriptures repeatedly.

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It's not just a trick.

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It's not just a little trick to

get everybody thinking spiritually.

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It's actually meditating on God's word.

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It's taking the time to read something

and really think about it and then

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read it again and pray about it and

then read it again and pray about it.

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And then the third one

is practice or practice.

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Practice is just a fancy way of

saying practice is doing what it says.

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The Bible says that those who are

mature, recognized, and they grow

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because of their constant practice.

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'cause constantly putting this into

practice, trying to do what I read.

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And God giving me the strength

and the ability to do it.

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Whether it's to love my enemies, whether

it's to forgive somebody who hurt me,

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whether it's to be find peace in the

midst of trouble, whether it's to be

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healed from my hurts in the past or to

be set free of addictions or problems

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that have that have wracked my life, you

know that are ruining my life, whether

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it's to love more to be not, you know,

the the all that's the all of this.

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is part of growing spiritually.

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These are the practices.

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And there are many spiritual

disciplines and we're going to be

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giving classes on all these things.

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Spiritual formation is a term

you're going to hear a lot.

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What is that?

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Letting God form your heart.

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Letting God form your mind.

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Spiritual development.

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What is that?

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Well, that's who we are

from birth to death, right?

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There's, there's a classic saying,

you're going to hear me say it a

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lot, who we are is God's gift to us.

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Who we become is our gift to God.

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That's spiritual development.

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Who do you become in your life and

whatever many years you're given on

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this planet, whether it's 20 years,

50 years, 80 years, a hundred years,

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who you become is your gift to God.

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That's spiritual development becoming more

and more like Jesus spiritual transition.

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There are times that we hit plateaus.

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And we have to work through it.

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There's a thing called the

dark night of the soul.

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It's when there's times where we

hit a wall and we don't see God,

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we don't feel God, we feel worldly

or whatever, and we have to work

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through that and get through it.

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Get through the darkness

back to the light.

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There's a prayer of affirmation,

statements of affirmation, and that's

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reminding us repeatedly who we are.

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Silence and solitude, getting

away, spending time just talking

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to God, and spending time just

being quiet and listening to God.

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There's lament, which is how we process

our pain and our hurts in life, that

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there's a very strong biblical pattern.

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That for the most part we're

not even aware of most of us

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have no idea what lament is.

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There will be a class on that Meditation

affirmation Journaling all of these

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are tools practicing Even rest Sabbath

rest, you know taking a day to just

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completely rest and spend time with

God, spend time with family, enjoy

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each other, not work, not do homework,

not do school work, excuse me, not

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school work, not do job work, not be,

not do any kind of work for a day.

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That doesn't mean you don't

have to do your homework.

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Do it the day before, do it the day after.

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So mindfulness, prayer, fasting, scripture

study, Lectio Divina, service to others.

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These are all, these are all practices

that help us grow spiritually.

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So we're going to be

talking about these things.

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We're going to be learning

about these things together.

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This is all going to help us on our

spiritual journey with one another.

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Um, I'm going to be coming out with

a bulletin that's going to give a lot

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of, uh, great resources from books to

read, apps, websites, all that kind

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of stuff to help us grow spiritually.

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And that's going to be under a

bulletin called Under the Broom Tree.

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And lastly, if you want to keep learning

more and you want to get more materials

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and you want the Broom Tree delivered to

you, sign up at The Way of the Pilgrim.

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Love you.

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Buen Camino.

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Marcel: Thank you, Robert.

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Again, this episode is part

two of a five part series.

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Our next episode for our "Spirituality

101" series will be about meditation.

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Thanks for listening to Deeper

Dive by the OC Church of Christ.

464

If you want to get connected to us

or want to donate to the program, go

465

to our website OCchurcho christ.com

or through social media @TheOCchurch.

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Join us next time for part

three of "Spirituality, 101."