Spiritual Growth … It May Not

by Bill Myers

Often the Christian life becomes a list of dos and don’ts.

DO

Read Scripture
Go to Church
Pray
Be nice
Help others
Give
Forgive

DON’T

Cheat
Kill
Steal
Party
Drink
Use drugs
Pre-marital sex
And on and on and on …

The Bible has hundreds of rules. Jesus condensed them into:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind.

Here’s how I see those three parts of us: heart, soul, and mind. We’re emotions (heart) and intellect (mind). Where these two overlap is the complete us, who we really are—our soul.

In the center of the soul is God’s Spirit. It’s what was breathed into Adam and what I believe makes us different from animals.

To keep our heart and mind functioning well we need to feed them. We do that by feeding our bodies three, four times day. The Spirit in our soul needs to be fed as well. How many times do we feed our Spirit?

The impact of the Spirit on my life is my choice. I am the one who decides whether to feed it. If I do, by abiding in God’s presence, its influence in me continues to grow until it is actually replacing my old ways of feeling, thinking, and behaving.

Sadly, many Christians stop feeding the Spirit. The worries and cares of life begin choking it out. As a result, their spiritual life begins to starve. It becomes stunted. But as we continue to feed upon God’s presence, it continues to grow, and we continue becoming more and more like him.

This is what makes Christianity so unique and different from any other religion or philosophy. Christianity is based on a living, vital relationship with God. It is not a list of dos and don’ts. The dos and don’ts are still important, but we don’t focus on them. Instead…

We pursue our relationship with God
Which in turn grows the fruit of his Spirit
Which allows us to naturally live the dos and don’ts.

Many of us have it backwards, focusing first on the dos and don’ts of our behavior. Instead, God calls us to focus on our relationship with him. And that makes all the difference in the world.

In addition to being a keynote speaker, Bill Myers is also teaching a Major Morning Track, “Keys for Unforgettable Storytelling.”

Writer/director Bill Myers’s work has won more than 70 national and international awards, including the C. S. Lewis Honor Award. He’s sold more than eight million books and videos, including McGee and Me, Imager Chronicles series, Eli, and his latest nonfiction, The Jesus Experience: Journey Deeper into the Heart of God. His film company, Amaris Media, is in development with multiple projects. Find out more at billmyers.com.

Bill first taught at Mount Hermon in the late 1980s, when he and Robin Jones Gunn were rambunctious newbies having food fights in the cafeteria. (He says biscuits fly the best.)