spiritual

My name is Naya and my spiritual path started, well before I was born really, but in my memory it really took hold when I was about five. Something happened to me that made me question the existence of God and my purpose on Earth. I was attending vacation bible school and when I asked my teacher how she knew God existed she became angry and made me stand in the corner while the other kids played.

I didn't know what I did wrong, but I became absolutely certain of one thing. She couldn't tell me how she knew God existed because she wasn't sure herself, and if she wasn't sure then maybe He didn't exist. But I knew that there was something out there because I could feel it... it just didn't have the face of God for me.

I spent a lot of the next three years trying to figure out what it was I felt, and it wasn't until I saw Star Wars: A New Hope that it really hit me. In that movie Obi-Wan Kenobi talks about a thing called The Force, which he describes as an energy field that surrounds all living things. Suddenly it all made sense to me. I must have been feeling the Force! This was the true start of my spiritual path because it is what compelled me to look beyond what people were telling me I should believe.

In this series, called Spiritual Pathways, I'm going to talk about all of the things that I have learned about on my spiritual journey. These include:

~ Meditation
~ Reiki
~ Tarot
~ Feng Shui
~ Buddhism
~ Yoga
~ Dream Interpretation
~ Astrology
~ Spiritual Development
~ And more...

For more information, please go to: http://spiritualpathways.blogspot.com/

To receive updates on future articles you can sign up for my newsletter at http://lionsongsden.netfirms.com

Subtle energy is that energy that we all can feel. If you have just entered a lively nightclub, you will feel the lively energy emanating from the room, if you go into a room and suddenly you feel something is wrong only to find out later that a loud argument had occurred, this is subtle energy. You don’t know what the reason is, yet you can feel it. If you rub your hands together quickly for a few minutes, then use one palm to come close but not touching the back of the other hand, you should feel a bit of heat coming from your palm before touching your hand.

Spiritual healing works in much the same way. We use the subtle energy through prayer, which many of us do every night or frequently throughout the day. There have been studies where prayer has helped people heal. Prayer is much like meditation in that you are focusing in on a subject and given that subject thought, which is energy and it’s that energy that influence healing by opening ourselves up to allow the life energy to flow through our bodies.

The spirit is the main component of a person because it carries with it the ultimate meaning and purpose of your life. This may be the reason that often we become more aware of the spirit during times of crisis or illness, we know we can come to our spirit for assistance.

Prayer or meditation may trigger the relaxation response, which basically is the process where the body automatically starts reducing the stress hormones in the body. In this process, the immune response may increase, blood pressure may lower and the heart rate may have slowed. These are the physical responses of the body. What actually is happening is the chakras are opening up, dislodging energy blockages and improving our ability to heal.

The spiritual healer does not heal us directly, they aid us in healing ourselves, to help us raise our energy through the chakras and to bring us into awareness that there is more to us than the physical and mental aspects. We are capable of becoming more enlightened than ever by using our minds on a more efficient and higher level allowing us to deal with the mundane issues of life much more effectively.

Conrad Raw is an expert in practical techniques for personal and spiritual development. He is the author of "Forbidden Secrets of Personal and Energetic Development." He travels the world to learn and teach and is the founder of http://www.greaterhumanpotential.com a website devoted to bringing you easy to learn techniques to increase your human evolution. Visit his website for a free newsletter filled with tons of great tips and advice.

“I then asked (Dr. Steiner), ‘How can it happen that the spiritual impulse, and especially the inner schooling, for which you are constantly providing stimulus and guidance bear so little fruit? Why do the people concerned give so little evidence of spiritual experience, in spite of all their efforts? Why, worst of all, is the will for action, for the carrying out of these spiritual impulses, so weak?’

“Then came the thought-provoking and surprising answer: ‘This is a problem of nutrition. Nutrition as it is today does not supply the strength necessary for manifesting the spirit in physical life. A bridge can no longer be built from thinking to will and action.’”

– Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, from the introduction to
Agriculture – Eight Lectures by Rudolf Steiner

We all know that “you are what you eat”; and many of us are becoming aware that this maxim has a spiritual as well as a physical dimension. We know we simply feel better when we eat well – when our bodies, rather than our minds, dictate what we should eat or not eat. Many of us have experienced a complete change in attitude and outlook on life by simply changing our diets. Whole bodies of thought, such as the Jewish kosher laws and macrobiotics, have evolved to stress the spirituality of food, to emphasize its sacredness.

The “spiritual quality of food” is not a metaphor: food contains a light fiber energy which is as important to our sustenance as vitamins and proteins, but which is not susceptible to chemical analysis. And just as the vitamin and protein content of food can be diminished by processing or overcooking, so too can the light fiber content of food be diminished by disrespect.

Light fibers are actually the same things as good feelings. When we feel good, we literally glow. When a food plant or animal feels good, it glows. Even when it is killed for food, the glow remains as long as the killing was done with respect; that is, with a sense of connectedness and gratitude rather than mechanically.

A farmer puts the glow into his plants and animals by treating them with respect – by respecting their feelings. Practically all farmers farm for the love it; they sure don’t do it for the money. They feel joyous as they ride their tractors up and down their fields, and that good feeling is communicated to the soil and plants. Similarly, most dairy farmers not only address their cows as individuals, but they also develop quirky personal relationships with them. Therefore, from a light fiber point of view, our vegetable and milk supplies are still relatively safe. Most egg farms, on the other hand, are run like Auschwitz, and that’s what makes eggs poisonous to eat (not their cholesterol).

Not all cultures have been so cut off from their true feelings about food as ours is today. Many Native American tribes had a deep awareness that they were a part of what they ate – e.g., the buffalo. They lived with the buffalo, followed the buffalo, prayed to the buffalo. They were one with the buffalo, and thus to them eating was a sacrament. Modern Native Americans maintain that same attitude of reverence towards maize.

But in America today we mine food, extract the nutrients out of it, strip it, rape it, and throw it away. What little nourishment for the spirit is left in food by modern agricultural and processing methods is completely destroyed by the way we eat it. We use food in a most disrespectful manner – stuffing it in gluttonously whether we are hungry or not, whether it tastes good or not, whether we really want it or not; and then we waste food as if to piss on it. Like sex, we have turned eating from a joyous, spiritual act into a source of great shame.

An infant doesn’t conceive of his food or his mother as something separate from himself; he doesn’t feel more important than his food, and therefore doesn’t feel disconnected from it. When an infant eats, he mingles with his food: he touches it, gets to know how it feels. It’s pretty, it satisfies his hunger, it makes him happy. But when an infant first sees adults eat, it makes him feel shame. This is because we adults don’t identify with our food – it’s as if our food is not a part of us, as if what we are putting into our mouths is something foreign to ourselves. We attack our food as if it is separate from us, and it is the act of eating which allows us to use it. We bite it off in huge mouthfuls like ravenous hyenas, chew it and swallow it with gulps of contempt. We come together in great rituals like Thanksgiving and Christmas in which we engage in orgies of gluttony and wastefulness to jointly validate our shame, all the while calling it glory. And that lie makes us even more ashamed; so we lie about that one too, and call it glory. And so on. And nobody will look at what they are really feeling, because if being pigs has brought us glory, why look at what pigs we are?

The reason why saints can survive on so little food is because they’re not attacking it, squeezing the life out of it, so it takes very little to sustain them. The Native Americans are able to survive on a diet of pretty much nothing but corn because they love the corn, and the corn loves them back, and they’re able to live from that love even though from the point of view of nutrition they should slowly starve to death.

While it is true that the original light fiber energy in food can be vitiated by disrespect anywhere along the line – in handling, processing, cooking, or eating – it is also true that light fiber energy, being more flexible than vitamins or proteins, can be restored to food by respecting it and treating it as sacred – by ritualizing the activities connected with it.

First of all, it’s important that you should raise at least some of your own food, even if all this means is a couple of pots of herbs or jars of sprouts grown on a window shelf. Try to throw in at least a pinch of home-grown herbs or sprouts into every meal you cook (not necessarily every dish, but every meal). Visualize yourself casting fibers of light into the food as you add your home-grown herbs or produce.

Next, bless your key, staple ingredients – salt, flour, sugar, honey, etc. You can ask any spirit helpers you are presently using to do this for you: Jesus or Mary, Krishna, nature spirits, etc. can all do the job for you. Just take them a pound of sugar, salt, or flour; address them in whatever form you are accustomed to; and ask them to please bless your ingredients. If you don’t have a spirit helper, just take the ingredients to the summit of the largest or most imposing mountain or hill in your immediate area; take the mountain spirit a token portion of something special you have cooked yourself as an offering; and ask him or her to please bless your ingredients. Don’t worry about whether you are doing it right: if you are doing it in good faith, you’re doing it right.

Keep your sacred, blessed ingredients apart from the regular ones, but whenever you refill the sugar bowl, salt shaker, flour bin, etc. add a pinch of the blessed ingredient, and imagine that you are putting light fibers in with the pinch.

Observe that you must never be in a bad mood when you cook, nor must you eat food cooked by someone who is in a bad mood, or even an indifferent one. A burger from a McDonald’s where the employees are a light, happy bunch has more light fiber energy than a plate of organic brown rice from a vegetarian restaurant where the cook is bored or is angry at the manager.

You can easily tell when food has bad vibes. It’s not that it tastes bad per se; rather, it feels wrong or out of place in your mouth – there’s no incentive to chew it and swallow it. Whenever you get a feeling like this about something you are eating, spit it out. Don’t swallow it, even to be polite. Much processed, convenience food “tastes” like this – bland, insipid, effete, enervated – but people get so used to this kind of food that they can’t tell the difference any more. They just assume that feeling lousy all the time is how you’re supposed to feel, and they cease to notice that it is their food which is bringing them down.

Finally, talk to your food. Thank it as if it were alive and could understand you. Not long conversation, just a simple acknowledgment that you are aware of being in the presence of a sentient being who is worthy of your respect, who died for you, and from whom you wish a favor. You wouldn’t ask a human being for a favor in a surly, disrespectful manner; on the contrary, you would ask humbly and respectfully, and feel gratitude for the favor when granted. And that is how you must address your food: take small bites, chew it slowly and mindfully, eat in silence paying attention to the act of eating, and never eat until full.

(excerpted from Bob Makransky’s book Magical Living)

More of Bob Makransky’s articles are posted at: http://www.dearbrutus.com To subscribe to Bob’s free monthly Astro-Magical e-zine, send an e-mail to: MagicalAlmanac-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

These are arrangements that we have created in our collective minds, and we are willing to fight to the death to protect them. Anyone questioning these values is considered an enemy, and will certainly be shunned . . . or worse. These values have been with us as long as humankind has walked the earth. When we were no more than primitive tribes, we fought each other over territory and beliefs, one clan believing perhaps in a Sun God, the other in a Moon God; we believed in nature Gods in those simpler times because we didn’t understand nature, and we seem to always deify those things we don’t quite understand.

Admittedly, God is a little fuzzier now, no longer a celestial object or a bearded, old man emerging from clouds surrounded by sunbeams. When we have an occasional enlightening episode that we can't understand, our egos must immediately categorize and control it. We can't seem to say, "I don't know." We must link it to whatever beliefs are in vogue at the time.

The fact that we never see the reality of our situations is not complicated; something simply holds us back from understanding, clearly, what exactly is going on, without prejudice or belief. It’s a strange phenomenon, this thing that holds us back, and it’s called — fear. When we are fearful, we rely on others to do our thinking for us, especially about things such as religion or culture.

While we adamantly project our independence in things more easily understood, we bow to higher authorities when it comes to our religion, our country, and even our families. We call it tradition, but in reality, it is fear of change. We go along with everyone else because to think for ourselves would be risky, and would require energy, intelligence, and especially courage. Furthermore, thinking for ourselves has always been discouraged by those in power. This only makes sense! "Just believe . . . what "I" say!" They say.

To go against the grain of society is considered to be negative, anti-social, and subversive. So why trouble ourselves? It’s easier not to question or make waves; after all, things are going pretty well so why rock the boat? If we lived in a country where freedoms are not available, where corruption and inequities abound, we might not be so tolerant, but we live in free country and that’s good enough. But then, why do we still feel fear and dissatisfaction? We must be brutally honest with ourselves here, and if we are, we must admit that we feel these things all the time. These things are the result of belief . . . belief in a separate self or ego. The ego can never escape fear and worry, that's why it seeks refuge in a religion that promises immortality.

Being told what to do and think can be comforting. It shifts responsibility to an authority. We look to a political party, a plan of action, a guru, a priest, anything to keep from taking responsibility ourselves. However, a problem arises when we capitulate like this; we subject ourselves to abuse. Being taken advantage of always requires, in one way or another, our passive acceptance, usually for the sake of convenience. Some people don’t accept being abused or taken advantage of, and these people cause all kinds of problems, but because of the strength of their convictions, they eventually prevail.

We passively resign ourselves to look toward others to tell us what to do and believe. Truth becomes secondary, and when we surrender in this manner, our situations become so comfortable that we soon find ourselves blindly following all kinds of ideals without questioning anything. Then we get into trouble. The ideals are more often than not ambitions of powerful egoistic individuals or organizations that want to structure humanity within their own narrow view of the world.

The history of organizations always reveals their real intentions, regardless of what they espouse. When we capitulate our independent thinking to the greed and hatred of these egoistic, unenlightened leaders or organizations, we, ourselves, become the cause of the wars that are certain to result. Then the security that we had hoped would result from blindly following an ideal, instead of taking responsibility and seeing for ourselves, becomes not security at all, but uncertainty and fear.

What keeps us from becoming independent thinkers? Why do we blindly follow the decrees of others? Do we do it because it is comfortable; a short cut, and makes us feel secure, warm, and fuzzy. God, country, family — these are our realities, and to question them would be to question the very fabric of our lives.

And all of this is where we were before the evolution.

The evolution that is occurring, where people are actually becoming free, involves fulfillment beyond an illusory warm and fuzzy security. We base this warm and fuzzy security upon a web of illusions that we find ourselves caught in, not seeing the spider in the corner waiting to pounce.

The spider in the corner is reality, and reality is anything but an illusory false sense of security. Reality is seeing all that we are, seeing all the ways we surrender, capitulate, and seeing the incompleteness of our lives. Within our illusions, we feel that our lives are complete, becoming entangled in a dream state where we go through the motions of putting on a good face, but underneath that false face, we only find worry and fear. We become fearful when we feel we are not in control, and how could we be in control when we surrender our very intelligence to others and allow them to control our minds?

We are fast asleep, and the only thing that can awaken us from our dream is passion. Passion arises suddenly, perhaps due to an accident, an illness, a misfortune of some kind, and suddenly we realize the prison we have made for ourselves. This is a wake-up call, and when it happens, an immediate call to action results, a call to break out of our self-induced prisons. But how do we break out? How do we see how we have incarcerated ourselves? We begin by examining our cherished values.

We are not going to rely on another authority this time, another self-help book, a priest to tell us what we will find or what we should do about it. We have created these values ourselves, and this time we must examine and investigate them by ourselves. We know that we are fearful, even in a near perfect life and society, so why is this?

What have we yet to discover that will set us completely free? We have spent all of our time and energy on things that society and religion insist will make us happy, things outside of ourselves. But happiness doesn’t happen; it dissipates as quickly as it arises. So where have we gone wrong? How have we been misled? This is what we must find out for ourselves.

When the passion to discover becomes great enough, when we finally figure out that we haven’t figured anything out, our intelligence will uncover true happiness, not a happiness promised by others, but a happiness we realize for ourselves. And this happiness has nothing to do with God, with country, or with family. It is much closer and deeper than that.

Loving God, country and family is not wrong, it is natural, but few actually love. A problem arises when we only think we love these things, and instead use them for merely our own security. It’s an egoistic, selfish thing. When we use God, country, and our families for security, then love is not love, it is dependency, and dependency can never promote love. Dependency promotes fear, as we cling to and control the things we depend upon.

Love comes from a much freer place. Love does not come from a place of egoism. Security does. Love is courageous. Security is cowardly. Security creates divisions among humankind, the color of ones skin or their religion is enough to warrant their eradication. This is happening now, unbelievably, after thousands of years of culture.

This is what the new evolution is about; seeing where we are and why we have arrived here, and then doing something about ourselves which will lessen the fear that permeates our world. In order to do this, we must look at all aspects of our lives and see where we use our God, our country, and our families for our own security, and confusing ourselves into thinking that this is love.

What is love? Is love what we feel when we are attracted to someone or something? New studies have shown that the part of the human brain that becomes stimulated when someone is in love is not the emotional centers at all, but the primal centers that control physical desires. Is love nothing more than animal lust, which turns into possessiveness, control — a business relationship involving anger, suspicion, guilt, and apprehension?

Or is love a passion, an undefined movement toward something that we can’t completely understand, a movement toward truth that presupposes the false? Is love a responsibility? Responsibility can’t be love, responsibility is something we must do, and love cannot be something we must do. Love is something that we do without an obligation in mind; it is not controllable.

Admitting that we don’t love God, our country or our family requires intelligence and honesty, and believe it or not, admitting that we don’t know how to love is the first step in truly loving . . . and becoming free. Only then is there a possibility of authentic love, and this time the love is universal, not narrow where those other than our God, our country, or our family are hated.

We structure our children to believe as we do and become as we are. Look around at the world and imagine it ten times as dangerous as it is now. This is where our children are heading. Why not allow children to develop as their hearts lead them rather than pump their innocent minds full of our ideas. The world we have made is a world where nobody can be trusted and everybody is out for themselves. You see it happening every day — in business, government, health care; it’s as if everybody is a used car salesman and we are his marks.

Every interaction is becoming a con of some kind. Who can you really trust? This is what our world is coming to. Why structure our children the same way? It’s not anybody but ourselves that’s causing problems; our own fear, ambition, and aggressiveness is boomeranging on us. But that’s difficult to swallow and admit — that would take a warrior.

Why force a tree to grow according to our dictates rather than protect and water it, and allow it to grow naturally? We fear that our children will not be successful, but how do we define success? Slaves to an economic world . . . or happiness and fulfillment? Where has an ambitious, competitive world taken us, except to the brink of nuclear war?

All of our technology will be destroyed instantly, along with us, when our ignorance and anger triggers the bombs. Then, looking back, the evolution that was just beginning was not such a bad idea, where our anger and our egoism were beginning to be understood, and the dangers of egoistic ambition were being uncovered in every aspect of our lives, especially our misunderstanding of God, country and religion.

Those that are evolving are a threat to the status quo. Those that are evolving therefore must be fearless. Those who fear change, those who refuse to wake up, will view this evolution as blasphemy, and consider those who are evolving dangerous. Therefore, only true warriors can tread this road, and once a warrior’s eyes begin to open, there can be no going back. When the warrior discovers how he or she has been manipulated, and how they have manipulated themselves, how could they possibly return to that kind of ignorance?

When we question our embedded values, a clash of culture results. That is why we create illusions and images about our values rather than question them. Warriors however question everything and aren’t afraid of clashing with embedded values. They refuse to create illusions about them, having enough courage to see exactly what is going on.

Those not evolving will give way and escape from this self-inquiry every time because this self-inquiry, this clash of our long held beliefs, involves suffering; a pain similar to an addict withdrawing from his or her addiction. But this kind of suffering eventually frees, unlike addictions that perpetuates illusions and unhappiness forever.

Only a warrior can withstand this intelligent suffering, and only a warrior can become totally free. Those not evolving attempt to escape their suffering through diversion rather than looking directly at their angst, but this kind of escape is temporary. Being born into a human, organic body insures suffering, and those who do not believe this either haven’t looked carefully at life or haven’t lived long enough.

Just look at our extended families, and then look at the world. Fifty percent of the children in the world go to bed hungry every night, and 18,000 die from starvation. It’s not because of a lack of food; it is a lack of enlightened leadership. Only a warrior can question his God, his country, and his family. Only a warrior can become awakened.

Warriors never begin movements or new religions based upon what he or she discovers, because a warrior understands the dependency and fog of religion. Non-warriors who refuse to think for themselves are the religion builders, as they attempt to find security in ideals. When a warrior sees how this has happened to herself, there is no further justification for religion. Security now resides not in a religion, but in the warrior’s heart.

The warrior doesn’t worry about perpetual life after death, or the continuance of ego, that’s not for warriors. Warriors don’t attempt to organize the truth, they see truth for themselves and they do not hold it. They allow truth to arise each moment. They know that truth cannot be captured; it’s much too fast for that. Religions that attempt to capture someone else’s truth are mere organizations that imprison fearful people, insecure people who must rely on outside authorities to tell them what to think.

Look at the different belief systems of the world. If we can remove ourselves for a moment from the narrow, restricted world of our own religion where dogma is continually reinforced and distilled by clan-like mentalities, we will see for ourselves that religion is only assumptions and suppositions. Miracles, pomp and ceremony, magic and mysticism — these are the glue that holds these Wizards of Oz together, and the results are fear and dependency . . . and warriors don’t fear. Only the fearful can be persuaded to follow paths of bondage leading nowhere but to confusion and sleep. Hoping for immortality and all the other egotistical fantasies of the fearful, are no more than fictional fairytales of unfortunate, oppressed people.

Our evolving warriors are the only hope for a world spinning out of control, and unfortunately, warriors can expect to find themselves entangled in conflict at every turn. This is the path of a true combatant, and a true combatant would never avoid the difficulties their path involves. A warrior does what is right in his or her heart, and lets the chips fall where they may. They have escaped their prisons, and offer hope to those who wish to escape as well.

Spiritual warriors are the future, and the future will be light years from what we consider religion to be today.

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

Copyright © E. Raymond Rock 2007. All rights reserved

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Spiritual Wellness India | River Rafting India | Yoga Meditation Tour Uttaranchal

In response to these lists, religious experts have devised a variety of methods for intellectually deducing one’s spiritual giftings and fruitings. Some of these methods include choosing your spiritual feeling about certain statements (such as “strongly agree” or “strongly disagree”) or choosing whatever number the survey statements make you think of (such as the number “1” or the number “2”). After a churchgoer has faithfully answered the spiritual survey, he can then plot the numbers on a graph and see if his answers make either a spiritual line or a spiritual bell curve. Seminary students are required to graph their spiritual gifts on a 3-D spiritual graphing calculator, which is why seminaries include at least a few semesters of calculus in their master's programs. Of course this is for advanced students only; average churchgoers have only enough time to learn simple spiritual graphs, which they usually bring home and stick on their refrigerators with a magnet. This is one of the most widespread methods for discovering churchgoers' spiritual inclinations these days.

Over the years I have tried a variety of methods for calculating my spiritual giftings and fruitings. The most enlightening point of view I have discovered about these things is that Christ's followers don’t need any mathematical calculations or surveys or even graphing calculators to find out about these things. This makes sense in light of the fact that calculus and especially 3-D graphing calculators had not been invented during New Testament times.

I will now tell you the secret. Having delved deep into the original Greek and Aramaic of the New Testament I have finally discovered the long-lost, secret method that the early church utilized to find out about their spiritual inclinations: Jesus told them.

As for the lists we find in the New Testament, the most enlightening, common factor among these lists is that none of them are the same.

Apparently, the Holy Spirit doesn’t bother to adhere to a particular list for every situation or, at least, the New Testament believers were unaccustomed to such an idea. And I doubt that each church had its own separate list of spiritual gifts, so that, once you left a particular area, then you left the jurisdiction of that list. All this to say, we who follow Christ should listen to Him to find out about our spiritual roles within His church. If He made us the way we are, then He is best qualified to tell about these things. This should be basic.

If God did have a comprehensive List that He wanted all His churches to follow forever, then Paul, with his widespread experience, would have probably known about it. However Paul, the great list-giver, never gave the same list twice. He even referred to himself as a few other things besides apostle, including preacher, teacher, evangelist and speaker of different languages. And he advised his general audience at Corinth to seek prophetic gifting, not just those who were more prophetically inclined than others. He seems inclined toward Spirit-led flexibility. If someone asked Paul, “What is the best spiritual gift?” he would probably reply, “The ability to humble yourself and submit to whatever the Spirit makes you, whenever the Spirit makes you.”

Of course everyone has different capacities. Everyone is purposefully limited, we’ve already gone over that. All I’m trying to say is... relax. Take a deep breath, and stop trying so hard to find your name in the Christian Directory of Spiritual Endowments. Nor should you try to know God by reading the Christian Encyclopedia of Everything There Is to Know About the Omnipotent Spirit of God. Don’t worry so much about pre-fabricated lists and explanations to define what kind of creature you are in Christ. Just ask Him and let Him educate you. Determine to obey Christ and let the chips fall wherever He may.

Biblical records do not quantify the work of God's Spirit, but rather, quite the opposite.

It is highly unlikely that New Testament believers would have tried to measure spiritual gifts based on some canonized list or spiritual slide-rule because they had the Real Deal, the Spirit of God Himself. It made sense to them, as it should to us now, that they could only know spiritual truth so far as the Spirit explicitly instructed them. Therefore, if God hasn’t changed anytime in the last two thousand years, then we also ought to esteem ourselves according to our open, active relationship with God's Spirit.

Do you believe that the Spirit of God literally teaches His people whatever they need to know about living in Christ in the world? If yes, then you might worry less about lugging all your theological textbooks wherever you go. What is all this business about dwelling in Christ? Does this also apply to us?

by Patrick Roberts. Find additional resources at www.BooksByPatrick.com