Christian Or Disciple 2

A number of years ago back I developed the Guptill Principle of Spiritual Growth

Under the Guptill Principal of spiritual growth each of us grows in our spiritual walk to our own personal level of disobedience. So we get saved, we are obedient to the spirit of God in our life, and we begin to grow and God shows us this and we deal with this and he shows us that and we deal with that, and we continue to grow. And then one day God says, “Hey sport what about this area,” and it might be anger, or our language or habits, or immoral behaviour or attitudes and we say “Uh-huh, you leave that alone.” And our spiritual growth stops dead in it’s tracks. And because we know that we are disobedient we are grumpy and miserable and unhappy. And at that point we have three options, one is that we just stay there, miserable and stuck. God won’t take us any further in our Christian walk then that point of disobedience. Or we say “forget this” and we backslide, we just walk away from God.” or we surrender to His will in our life and become obedient and move on in our Christian life and continue to grow.

What is your point of personal disobedience? where are you stuck? Or maybe you’ve come to the place where you have sold out to God and you continue to grow and he continues to show you areas in your life that need to be dealt with and you deal with them, no ifs ands or buts.

How does your life measure up? Until we choose to submit to God’s will we will never experience all he has for us. You can never be a winner when you try to pit your will against God’s will. A disciple has learned the truth of 1 John 1:6-7 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. Are you living in all the light he gives you?

John 15:12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

7) A Disciple Knows How to Love These were some of the last words of Christ and he did not say “This is my commandment: Volunteer in your local church” My apologies to all the department heads out there. And He didn’t say “This is my commandment: tithe” Sorry Mike and I regret to say that he didn’t tell his apostles “This is my commandment: attend church every Sunday.”

He didn’t call us to judge one another, or to talk about one another. He didn’t call us to put one another down. But he did say John 15:12 This is my commandment: Love each other And how are we supposed to do that? in the same way I have loved you. The New Testament speaks a lot about love, as a matter of fact the entire bible speaks a lot about love it is mentioned over seven hundred times in one form or another.

Jesus tells us in Luke 10:27 to love our Neighbours and in Matthew 5:44 we are told to love our Enemies In Matthew 22:37 we are told to love our God and in John 15:17 we are told to love Other Christians And in John 14:15 we are told to love Jesus.