Devotions from John Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be

What do you do that makes you feel fully alive? I think we will find that it is different for everyone…like taking a long walk, reading a great book, watching a movie, fellowshipping with close friends etc.  “A spiritual discipline is simply an activity you engage in to be made more fully alive by the Spirit of Life”.   Every moment is a chance to live in the flow of the Spirit.  What makes an activity spiritual is not the activity itself but whether or not I do it with and through the Spirit.  We all have spiritual pathways that help us experience the presence of God.  Naturalist finds God in nature. An ascetic is drawn to disciplines. The activist comes alive spiritually in a great cause. A traditionalist loves historical liturgies.  A caregiver meets God in serving. A Sensate senses God through the five senses. An enthusiast loves to grow through people. The contemplative is drawn to solitary reflection and prayer. An Intellectual loves God by learning.  How do we learn…Visual? Auditory? Tactile? Oral? Social? Logical? imaginative?  We all have a style for learning as well. Even knowing our sin patterns can help remove barriers to living in the flow of the Spirit. When I am aware of my signature sins, I am less vulnerable to them.  How we grow also depends on the season of our spiritual life.  When we are young in faith, structure seems important but may not later in life.

 Freedom is the goal of growth.  We are free to find the path that helps us best. Let us not look at anyone else but to our creator. “Spiritual growth is hand-crafted, not mass-produced. God does not do ‘one-size-fits-all”. He has a plan for each of us.

Devotions from  John Ortberg’s book, The Me I want to Be

It’s important that we all find out how we grow spiritually. What works for someone else may not work or be helpful for us. We are God’s masterpiece He created (Eph. 2:10) and masterpieces get handcrafted. God didn’t make us like anyone else so his plan for shaping us will not look like his plan for anyone else. If you try to follow a generic plan for spiritual growth, it will only frustrate you. The key is to find the unique conditions that help each of us to grow. 
God knows what each person needs and never grows two people the same way.  The problem many of us have is to listen to someone we think is an expert ( maybe our pastor) and think that we have to do  it the same way. When it doesn’t work we may give up. God’s plan for me will not look like any one else, which means it will take freedom and exploration for me to learn how God wants to grow me. For example I love to journal but for someone else they are not wired that way and hate to journal.  We need to find those things that help us become more aware of God’s presence in our own lives and not feel guilty if it is not like someone else.  We learn differently, struggle with different sins, and relate to God in different ways.  “The main measure of your devotion to God is not your devotional life. It is simply your life.”  More on this tomorrow.

Devotions for 3-9 from Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be

The life of freedom and joy is available to us right now.  When our focus is on Him, everything else falls into place.
There are two versions of us. There is the you God made us to be-and there is the you that currently exists.  So right now we live in the gap. Some think if they try harder, they can close the gap between them and God .  More effort is not the way but it can only be bridged by grace. “God’s plan is for our daily life to be given, guided, guarded, and energized by the grace of God. To live in grace is to flow in the Spirit.”   The only way to become the person God made us to be is to live with the Spirit of God flowing through us, like a river of living water.  Experiencing this flow is what makes us come alive and full of vitality and joy..  When we experience gratitude, contentment, and satisfaction deep in our souls, there is a good chance it is the Spirit flowing within us.  There is also going to be some spill-over that blesses others around us. As we go about our lives, let us not quench the Spirit or get in His way but open ourselves up to His influence in our lives. It takes time for us to get re-formed but all that is needed is a sincere desire to be submitted to the Spirit’s leading. We cannot be satisfied apart from Him. He is the thirst quencher, the life-giver, the Spirit-bringer!

Devotions from John Ortberg’s book, The Me I want to Be

We can’t follow God if we don’t trust that He really has our best interest at heart. There is a big difference between following rules and following Him because we can follow rules without cultivating the right heart.  We will find ourselves unmotivated to pursue spiritual growth if we think God’s aim is to produce rule-followers. Then spiritual growth would end up being an obligation rather than a desire of our heart.

Jesus did not say that He came that we might follow the rules. He said that He came so we might have life with abundance. God designed us to flourish and wants us to grow and have full life. If we give up on our growth and life’s purpose, we lose hope and meaning and have an inner deadness. Jesus wants us to receive power from God and to be spiritually alive and fruitful.  If we fail to become the person God designed for us to be, others will miss out on the gift we were made to give.  St. Irenaeus wrote, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive; and to be alive consists in beholding God.” No matter how much we have messed up our life, He is always waiting for us making the next step possible.
A few ways the author suggests that God gives life and vitality to us: nature, spiritual friendships, worship, solitude, serving, study, art, scripture, recreation, laughter, retreat, small groups, family, exercise, leading, celebration, etc.

Devotions from Ortberg’s book, The Me I want to Be

God designed us to be ourselves and He delights in our actual lives. When we grow toward the me we Want to be, we are freed from the me we pretend to be. Pretending to be someone we’re not is hard work and takes lots of energy.

Comparison with others kills spiritual growth in our lives too. Henri Nouwen wrote, “Spiritual greatness has nothing to do with being greater than others. IT has everything to do with being as great as each of us can be. We all have a me that we think we SHOULD be, which is at odds with the me God made us to be. We need to let go of that self which is a big relief. But even though this is a death ( to false self) a better and nobler self can come to life.  Sometimes we are so concerned to be what other people want us to be that we live a shallow life. Nobody else can tell you exactly how to change because nobody but God knows. God gets the final word on who God made us to be and He has no other agenda. God is at work every moment to help us become his best version of ourselves!

Devotions taken from the  book by John Ortberg called “The Me I Want to Be”

Life is not about achievement or experience but who we become.  Do we want to be fully alive inside and have the inner freedom to live in love and joy? Yes! God made us to flourish and when we flourish we become more the person He created us to be, alive and with purpose. Only God knows our full potential, and can see the best version of us. He is more concerned with us reaching our potential than we are.  Our life is His project. He thought us up and knows what we were intended to be. He can change us but we will always be the “me” he intended. He pre-wired our temperament and determined our natural gifts and talents. Our uniqueness is God-designed. Some think as we grow spiritually that we will have to become someone else. But God doesn’t discard our raw material. HE redirects it. The me God made me to be is measured by my capacity to love. When we live in love, we flourish.  The time to love is now. Nothing offered in love is ever lost for we go on into eternity.

Devotions from James Smith book, The Good and Beautiful Life

The secret to a vibrant life in Christ is to abide in Him. The way to wholeness and happiness is to live with utter dependence on Him, like the Vine and the branches. If we live apart from Jesus we are disconnected from the vine and cannot bear the fruit of the Spirit.  “ To abide means to rest and rely on Him, who is not outside of us, judging us, but inside of us, empowering us . The more deeply we are aware of our identity in Christ, and of His presence and power that are with us, the more naturally we will do this.” To abide means spending time with Him and doing spiritual practices that help nurture our relationship with Him. Over time we will notice that we are being transformed from the inside out.
Let us spend this ordinary day with our minds set on things above. May we not let our spiritual thoughts fade away but fuel our fire with prayer, frequent recollecting, basking in His peace, pausing between activities to be still and turning our thoughts to Him, and then end our day with self-examination.  These are helpful ways to live with God, but not the means to get God to like us for He loves us already unconditionally. Yes!

Devotions based on James Smith book, The Good and Beautiful Life

“God alone is the spark that ignites the flame in our souls.”  Just like we build a fire in our wood stove each day, there are things we can do to maintain a vibrant life with God.

 We can stoke the fire throughout the day by pausing for short times of prayer, reading a devotional book, spending some time in self-examination before going to sleep etc. These are like logs that we add to the existing fire the keep our hearts aflame. When we neglect spiritual practices our souls atrophy.  But these practices are not merit badges either that determine how God feels about us.  Our relationship with Him is not based on keeping all the right rules but learning how to be like Him by being with Him….which is abiding in Him. Our hearts long for something deeper than just doing certain things for it is all about relationship. Let us spend time with Him throughout our day.