A Deeper Christian Life

Scriptural references: *Psalm 101 *Matthew 5:22, 28 *Matthew 22:1-14 *Ephesians 4:30 *1 John 3:3 For much of my devotional time with the Lord this past week, I have been prayerfully contemplating Psalm 101, which the English Standard Version prefaces with the heading: I Will Walk With Integrity. This morning, as I began to pray-read this Psalm again, I got the sense to read it as a declaration of the Triune God to the Church. As I did so, it increasingly felt like a letter to the Church right out of the Book of Revelation. I would humbly exhort you thus: If you hope to walk closely with the Lord Jesus Christ and have intimate fellowship with Him, please heed this rendering of Psalm 101, which I have based on the ESV translation (despite some of the early Elizabethan English usages, which I believe He wanted, in order to set the right tone): Verse 2: “Hear, all ye who fear the Lord: Truly, I say unto thee: ponder the way that is blameless, that ye may walk therein. Then will I feel welc...

I ask myself this on the regular, but not because I want to put myself under a law of my own making. Nor do I want to addict myself to a certain emotional experience or state of mind or otherwise subject myself to an unrealistic or unsustainable expectation. Rather, I fear departing from my first love, allowing my heart to grow cold and complacent, taking the precious mercy of God for granted. I know that dry spells are a part of every believer’s experience over the long haul. Still, I beg Christ to be my ever-watchful vigilance against becoming lukewarm, lazy, distracted, etc. Lord, burn within my heart, I pray! Ultimately, as long as my mind and heart think of Him, as long as my innermost being turns to Him, and as long as my conscious will looks to Him to be my life; as long as I’m loving and serving the Lord, my wife, and the brothers and the sisters in my life; as long as I am bearing fruit in season; and as long as I remain a loving, faithful and loyal slave to Him (all and only ...

Here’s another essential component of a deeper walk with your Lord, at the risk of stating the obvious: If/when you sin, trespass, fail or otherwise fall short, be quick to repent and confess to the Lord, plead the blood of Christ against any accusations from the enemy if you need to, and ask the Lord to create a clean heart inside you and renew a right spirit within you. Do this as quickly as possible (immediately is preferable) and as frequently as necessary. Do not succumb to any sort of “repentance fatigue.”  Open communication between you and the Lord is absolutely critical to a close walk with Him, and the enemy loves to disrupt your communication with the Lord as much as possible by making you feel guilty, telling you you’re too needy, you’re not important enough to the Lord, the Lord’s too busy, it’s no use, you might as well wait until later, etc.  Don’t fall for any of this. Repent and confess and seek renewal the instant you go astray. And if you need to do this 100...

One way that the Holy Spirit may open your mind and heart to the deeper things of God is for you to consider the nature and origin of that innermost part of you: your human spirit. This has profound implications for your sense of identity, and for where you place your attention and affection and allegiance. Your spirit, once regenerated and quickened by exercising saving faith in Jesus Christ, is, subjectively and theoretically speaking, the purest part of you. If you have believed into Jesus Christ and have received His Spirit, you have received His eternal life, which wells up within your spirit to quicken you and your mortal body and to quench your thirst. Your body was made to interact with the physical dimension; that is, the visible, physical world all around you. But not so your spirit. This innermost part of you was created to live in the spiritual, invisible world, otherwise known throughout the Scriptures as the heavens, the heavenlies, the heavenly realm, the Kingdom of Heav...