Episode 92- The key to gaining momentum in your spiritual growth

We're starting a brand new series on the podcast during September, called ‘Beyond Bible study’.

If you ever have to pick one of the spiritual disciplines, this is the one: get into God’s word. However,  Scripture intake is not the only spiritual discipline, and we can get caught up in it. Wwe can become so head knowledge heavy that we become this oversized head walking around… and we become useless. 

We can be really good at Bible study, and yet, we're not really growing in Christ's likeness because we're ignoring some of the other things that are important for our growth. 

We are not saying that we should ignore this particular discipline but there's more to growth than just Bible study. As women in particular, we tend to be really good at this one but maybe not so balanced in the others.

So our idea is to talk about some of those disciplines outside of Bible study! We're going beyond Bible study, but we're not leaving it behind. Because that is going to be what's going to inform this considering and the renewal of our minds. And we've chosen 10 spiritual disciplines to go through. 

Today, we are going to briefly introduce you to 5 Spiritual Disciplines:

1. Bible intake. 

There's a lot of ways we can do Bible intake. Of course, it's reading the Bible, but it can also be listening to the Bible, listening to sermons, scripture, meditating, journaling scripture, praying scripture. 

Living a life oriented around scripture and any way that we can get the scripture into our minds, hearts, memory falls under the “Bible Intake” discipline.

 2. Prayer

This is when we actually have the privilege of talking to God.He listens to us and he answers our prayers. And there's a lot of ways to do that. 

You can learn about the different types of prayers here: 8 ways the Bible teaches us to pray

Adoration, confession, Thanksgiving, supplication. You can pray out loud, you can pray silently, and you can pray with others. Two or more, gathering together and praying is a powerful thing. So prayer is a discipline that we need to practice on a daily basis.

3. Hospitality

The attitude of welcoming in other people. And the reason we do that is to proclaim the name of Christ because we are representatives of His name. It can start with something as simple as identifying someone in your local church or your community, that you’d just like to get to know a little better. 

All over scripture there's this general attitude of welcoming outsiders. And God himself did that from the Old Testament on. You see him always welcoming outsiders and using outsiders to write part of the story.

We are supposed to all practice hospitality, a love of strangers. Reaching out to others, to those that are not like us. And the whole purpose is to show them the love of Christ, and point them to the gospel. 

4. Stewardship and/or Service. 

Stewardship is managing what we have, the things that God has blessed us with. And that's not just our money, but It's also our time, relationships, our spiritual gifts, and so on.

The point is find your God-given strengths and use them to bless others.. If you've been given all these wonderful gifts it’s to be a blessing to others. We've been given things and we are to practice using those for the kingdom of God. This is a discipline. If you ever know what your strengths are, do not let your weaknesses keep you from practicing them. 

Steward it well, for the glory of God, be His representation.  

5. Considering

This comes from “Romans 12”, where we are told to watch how we think. We become what we think.  Our minds are so powerful. 

Romans 12:2:

2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

It states very clearly that we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. How we think is who we become and if we think that we are alive unto God, we are dead to sin, we are forgiven in Christ, we are His children, then we're gonna act like that person. But if we are thinking we are condemned, we can't help sinning, we are giving these excuses for not taking action, then in our actions and our personhood, that's what we're gonna become.

So how we think is extremely important. This is a core and extremely important spiritual discipline, especially for us as women, because we can oftentimes let our thoughts be led by our emotions. We need to instead think according to God's word, according to His truth. And let the feelings follow that.

That’s it for the 5 Spiritual Disciplines we are discussing in today’s episode. We want you to consider them and think about it. Use our free download “Momentum” to help with your reflections. 

Next week we have 5 more disciplines to talk about. Don’t miss it ‘;)

For Further Study

{FREE DOWNLOAD} Momentum it’s an instant download that outlines everything that we're talking about today. We added some of the benefits of each one of the disciplines in there to motivate you to give them a try. Download it for free: sojohub.com/momentum

With this resource, you will discover:

• The key to experiencing steady, ongoing spiritual growth
• Practical ideas for next steps you can take TODAY to gain momentum
• 5 tips for making time to invest in your spiritual development
• The overlooked secret to getting unstuck when you hit a plateau