Areas in which we need to learn to grow as Christians
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- Discouragement
This affects us all in different degrees. The greatest times of discouragement are often those that follow immediately after some moment of victory or spiritual success, because all our inner resources are exhausted and we are, therefore, vulnerable.
Discouragement introduces a sense of false values, and therefore, we stop seeing things as God sees them, or even to be realistic in human terms.
Discouragement causes us to flee from our real responsibilities and can lead to self-pity. Own pity is one of the most destructive forces of human nature.
It turns against ourselves and envelops us in a cloud of darkness that prevents us from seeing reality. Self-pity paralyzes us in terms of the responsibilities we have with others and immobilizes us spiritually and sometimes physically.
Discouragement makes us expand everything out of perspective. When we are discouraged we need to be encouraged in the Lord. We need to set our eyes on God and begin to see things as He sees them.
- Comparisons
We do not serve the Lord in a vacuum. We are part of the body of Christ as a whole, and sometimes there is a very close kinship between us and others who serve the Lord with their own gifts and in their own way.
This should be cause for great rejoicing; God in his infinite wisdom, has chosen a great variety of people and has trained them in various ministries to serve the kingdom. However, it often causes pain due to feelings of inadequacy and deficiency in our own hearts.
Instead of feeling joyful about its fruition, we feel threatened. Therefore, instead of speaking positively about others, we become critical and negative, always looking for a pretext that allows us to tear down instead of building.
Iron with iron sharpens; and so the man sharpens the face of his friend. (Proverbs 27.17).
For this to happen as it should, we need to do three things:
Recognize as clearly as we can, our own call before the Lord and live in it. It is a very dangerous thing to live in the calling of another man.
Relax in the power of God and always try to be aware that unless God does it in us and through us, no one else will.
Rejoice in the fruition of others by focusing on what is positive.
- Disappointment
This often comes from the unsuccessful hopes and hopes of our own hearts. A sense of failure can prove disastrous to effective ministry. Disappointment can also come from the lives of others, when our hopes for them are not fulfilled.
We should let disappointments be a "testing ground" for faith. We need to move away from the intensity of the disappointment in our spirit and let the heat go away from it, so that it can become a refining fire for our faith. It is good for our soul not always to get what we want when we want it (2 Corinthians 4.16-18).
- Pressure
We need to face the fact that every real ministry is going to take a proportional measure of responsibility. Responsibility carries pressure with it. If we deal with the pressure in the wrong way, it will crush us. The pressure of need or of a particular faith initiative can be a tremendous stimulus to a heavy burden.
The right pressure moves us to action and can be very productive when we assume it in the power of God (James 1.2).
If we are to be fruitful, particularly from other people, we will need to develop the gift of knowing the right and wrong pressure, and the ability to accept what is right and discard what is wrong.
The pressure develops the perseverance, which is an absolute necessity in the days in which we live, because it develops in us a greater capacity for the work that God has given us. Pressure teaches us our capacity and when it is handled properly, it also increases it.
The pressure also shows areas of weakness in our life and personality, so that we can become aware of a problem before it starts, or take the necessary spiritual steps to effect a change.
The problem comes when we take the wrong pressure. This happens when we have accepted a task or position for which we are neither called nor prepared. Satan will take care that our eyes decide, and instead of being at peace to accept and act within God's will for our life, we will become subject to the demands and pressures that the Father never proposed for our life.
In a ministry there needs to be a basic agreement of ideas and modes of spiritual approaches. However, loyalty does not necessarily mean that you agree with each other about insignificant detail.
It is not spiritual leadership that demands this kind of conformity, but spiritual dictation. Part of each of us wants everyone else to agree with us all the time, but it rarely happens that way. As individuals we are not holders of all truth and virtue. Creative conflict is a very productive element in the development of our own thinking and ministry.
Due to the pressure of other people's modes of approach and ideas, our people are often confirmed or modified, and if they are confirmed then they are even clearer and stronger because of the challenge of the apparent conflict.
Anyway, we should be more mature instead of seeing this as a conflict. Of course, there are limits beyond which differences are no longer creative, because they lead to war between groups of people rather than a useful discussion.
- Gossip, slander and misunderstandings
A gossip language can inflict terrible wounds on another person. Some who speak quickly and lightly with their tongues never stop to consider the damage that is caused, sadly many times beyond repair (Proverbs 18.8; 16.28; James 3.6). We need to learn certain lessons very quickly:
- There is no self-defense league in the Kingdom of heaven. It is not worth anything to play the cock and try some kind of wrong defense.
If our immediate response is to give furious blows without looking at whom, we will be in danger of being bitten twice, because here we are confronted with an evil that comes from the very pit of hell. The tragedy is, of course, that it is an evil that has spread throughout the body of Christ.
- We need to know when to leave it alone or when to confront it with the truth. There are moments when either of the two ways of acting can be correct and we need the gift of discernment in the Holy Spirit to know the difference.
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There are times when gossip is based on nothing more than misinformation, and only a small dose of the truth is needed to correct it.
- We need to know how to let the hurtful word challenge our own life and action. Many times criticism has a grain of truth in it from which we can learn something.
Gossip rarely disturbs and certainly can not destroy a heart and life in peace with God. If you know your position and you have that open relationship with the Father and he tells you that everything is fine, then you have nothing to fear.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.7).
- Wounds and personal problems
The wounds can lead to a terrible crushing of the spirit.
The mind of man will bear his disease; more, who will endure the anguished spirit? (Proverbs 18.14).
It is at times like this that the Lord wants us to bring everything to Him. There is no other answer to this deeper need of our spirit. The Father knows our spirit because He created it.
He knows how to handle it, he knows how to heal it, he knows how to check it back to life again. He knows how to pour his balm on our hearts without allowing us to indulge in the pain of ourselves. His hand is loving, but strong.
Casting all your anxiety on Him, because He takes care of you (1 Peter 5.7)
True Christian growth, therefore, depends on "feeding on" Christ.
Simon Peter learned this lesson well. He urges us to apply it: "As newborn children, desire the pure milk of the word, so that through it you may grow up for salvation, if you have tasted the goodness of the Lord" (1 Peter 2: 2,3).
What is this "pure milk"? The context of Peter's words brings us out of doubt. He speaks of the "truth" and the "word" of God (1 Peter 1: 22,23,24). The "milk" we need is the teaching of the Word of God, the Bible. And we have to "want it".
Do you remember your first baby when he woke up, crying from hunger? Nothing you did could satisfy the baby except for the food he needed. That is the image that Peter has in mind! Be like that baby in the way you want the teaching of the Word of God, he says. Judas repeats his thoughts: "But you, beloved, edifying yourselves in your most holy faith [...]" (Jude v. 20). But how can we do this? The Scripture gives us the answer:
All Scripture is inspired by God and useful to teach, to reprove, to correct, to instruct in righteousness, so that the man of God may be perfect, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3: 16,17).
Thanks for sharing this.
The more we allow the happenings of this world to dominate our heart, the more we slide away from the ways of the Lord.
We need to keep encouraging ourselves every day by the efficacy of the word of God and we need to build ourselves up in total confidence in God when we want to be discouraged in this race.