Life! Common or Spiritual?

 Ps 42:8. But each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life.




  1. Common life.  Everyone breathing benefits from the breath of life and the ability to be alive. God gives life—whether that life is acknowledged or not.
  2. Spiritual life.  Ah this is different.  It is the Spirit that gives life!  Here this is special life or special grace.  It is an opening of one’s understanding through divine grace and revelation of the need of spiritual life infused with forgiveness, grace, and freedom.  Unsaved person do not know they are dead in their trespasses and sins.  They are breathing God’s air.  They are the recipients of common life/ common grace—but they are dead—as dead as dead can be.  They think they are alive but they are totally deceived and they are trying to live their common life with as much life as they can muster up.  Now only spiritually alive persons can proceed to the next dimension of life.
  3. Daily uplifting life.  This is even deeper.  This is a continual consciousness or awareness that everything is different because one is infused with Divine presence.  It is the higher life.  It is the deeper life.  There are many words/ phrases used to define this—it is wonderful!  It is a permeation of common life and spiritual life with a holy presence.  It is practicing the presence of God. It is prayer without ceasing.  It is an acknowledgement of divine presence always.  It is living common life and spiritual life with a holy awareness.  It is exhilarating.  It is soaring above the pains, difficulties, embarrassments, trials, and disappointments.  It is the infusion of divine presence.  It is the infusion of divine image.  It is the annihilation of your own opinions, your own will, your own wants because you have found the source of true life and true satisfaction.  It is hiddenness.  It is littleness.  It is awesome.  It is being engulfed with Divine presence!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning to hate your sin

Image
   John 5:13-15 (NLT) 13 The man didn’t know, for Jesus had disappeared into the crowd. 14 But afterward Jesus found him in the Temple and told him, “Now you are well; so stop sinning, or something even worse may happen to you.” 15 Then the man went and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had healed him.   Lord give me grace, power, and effort to maintain a resilience against sin.  Sin is ALWAYS a dark path. It ALWAYS pays wages.  The wage of sin is death.  Sin will always hurt, always destroy, always wound—you, relationships, stuff, goals, etc.  It is a killer.  It is a wound-er.  It is a consumer of all that is healthy, strong, good, and perfect. Learn to hate sin. Learn to fear sin. Learn to run as fast as you can away from sin. Search deeply for hidden sin. Be disgusted with your sin.  Repent, repent, repent daily for your sin. Be afraid of your sin. Be petrified of your sin. Be worried about your sin. And keep repenting, keeping running into the arms of grace and the arm
Read more

Meditation

Image
Meditation I realize as we move on with this series that there are two things that need some clarification.  We already looked at the idea of silence and quietness—this week we will look at meditation.  Let’s begin by giving you the descriptions of the differences between these two disciplines.  Although from an outsider’s position there may be little or subtle differences, I want to help you process the vast difference between these—-and the immense benefit from both of these disciplines: Silence/ Quietness: Here the idea is shutting out your active mind —leaving lots of space for two things.  First, space to give your mind a rest, relaxing your mind.  It is a stopping of your mind from racing around solving all the problems of the world.  Second, giving space to hear from God! It is laying aside your agenda.  It is putting aside the debris, hurriedness, and hectic pace to relax in God’s presence.  Often music can help you with this.  Using the “Jesus praye
Read more

God is after you! And... for a different reason than you think!

Have you ever been pursued by a suitor—a lover—someone who is very interested in you? Was it pleasant to be liked?  Was it pleasant to be wanted?  Well, yeah—for sure.  Who doesn’t want to be loved? Who doesn’t want to be sought after?  Who doesn’t want to be appreciated? I do!  I am sure you do too! Did you know that is actually the message of Christmas—and the actual ‘story’ of the Bible?  It’s a story about God pursuing humanity. Too often when we think of God, or church, or the Bible—we think of behaving ourselves enough to get God’s attention.  Or, we think of trying hard to impress God—so that God would appreciate the hard work we are doing down here and give us His nod. Well, actually that is not true.  That is not the message of the Bible—nor the core message of Christmas.  It is actually the total opposite.  The core message of Christmas is not our chasing God—it is God chasing us! God is so in love with us—and wants so much for us to be with Him—and wa
Read more