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Tag: spiritual

Published July 10, 2023

First Steps

Last Sunday we kicked off a new summer series which I’ve entitled “Transformational Discipleship”. The main principle for this series is rooted in Romans 12:2 which says:

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Romans 12:2

The idea here is that, even though God loves and accepts us just as we are – with our sins, faults, and failures – it’s not His desire that we stay that way! God wants to totally transform us into new people – new people who know His will for our lives – which is good and pleasing and perfect!

And of course, this transformational discipleship is a life-long process. Certainly there can be some immediate, major changes in our life when we first accept Christ. Many times new believers can be radically different from the people they were just weeks before! But even though we may experience some immediate, major changes (which are often outward changes in behavior) – it always takes much longer to make those inner changes – the changes in the way we think and what we believe – the renewing of our mind as the NIV puts this verse.

This kind of changing the way we think is really a slow, maturing process. Just like how we physically grow up slowly from an infant to a child to a youth to an adult – in the same way, we spiritually grow up slowly as we mature and grow and develop as followers of Jesus.

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Published July 4, 2017

Your Spiritual Journey

Every person on the planet is constantly in motion. We are always moving. For example, scientists tell us that the earth’s continents are slowly drifting apart. They figure that North America moving at a rate of about 2 to 4 inches every year. And actually in 2011 when Japan had that large earthquake and tsunami – it moved Japan about 8 feet closer to our west coast. That’s amazing! That’s some serious motion.

And not only are our continents moving – the entire planet is in motion. You know how the sun comes up every morning and goes down every evening? That’s because the earth is spinning in an easterly direction at about 1000 miles per hour. Not only that, the earth screaming through space in an orbit around the sun at about 67,000 mph. That’s a lot of movement!

But the sun is moving too… Our entire solar system is rotating within our galaxy at a speed of about 500,000 mph. And if that still doesn’t blow your mind, our galaxy is not only rotating, but it is also moving away from other galaxies at a rate of about 1.2 million mph.

That means, even if you were to try and stand perfectly still within your own home, you would actual move approximately the distance between here and Cuba!

The fact is, from the day you are born to the day you die, you are always moving. You’re never standing still.

And that leads me into what I want to talk about today. Just like we are always physically moving, we are also always spiritually moving. From the day we are born to the day we die, we are on a spiritual journey. Everyone of us. It doesn’t matter if we are a Christian, or an atheist, or a muslim, or a hindu, or a whatever else. We’re all on a spiritual journey. The difference, of course, is where our journey leads us. (And we’re going to get into that a little bit later on.)

But all of us are on a spiritual journey. We’re either moving towards God or away from Him. There’s no standing still in this journey.

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Published October 2, 2012

The Role of Community in Your Spiritual Journey


This morning I want to begin with a very interesting discussion question. And I trust that you’ll be eager to participate with me. The question I have for you today is this: What is the role of donuts in your spiritual journey? You might not have thought about this before, but that’s what I want you to discuss for a few minutes this morning. What is the role of donuts in your spiritual journey?

Now, to help you in your discussion, you’ll notice that there is a pile of donuts over here on this table. I invite you to come and have a donut – or if you’re a little more healthy minded, there are some clusters of grapes as well. But here is the rule: You must share your donut (or your grapes) with someone else. You can’t eat a whole donut by yourself – you must find someone to share it with. And don’t just cut it in half and leave half on the table – you MUST share that donut with someone else. So please, come and help yourself, and then take a couples minutes to discuss: What is the role of donuts (or grapes) in your spiritual journey?

As strange as that question might seem, there is a Biblical point to be made – and we’re going to get into that in just a few minutes. But first, let me remind you what we’ve been talking about.

For the past few weeks, we’ve been going though this little booklet entitled “Your Spiritual Journey”. We’ve been asking the question: Where are you in your spiritual journey?

  • Some of us are just beginning. We’re still trying to figure out all this “God” stuff. It’s all pretty new to us.
  • Others have been at this for a little while, and we’re at the point where we’ve started to personally get to know the God of Heaven. It’s pretty cool.
  • Still others have been followers of Jesus Christ for years now. And little by little, we’re starting to become more like Christ – but of course, there’s still a long way to go.

But where ever you are in your journey – our goal has been to help you take the next steps forward. We don’t want to see you stalled out in your spiritual journey – we want to see you moving forward.

And that’s what brings us to our message today. And our topic isn’t really about donuts, but about fellowship. About Community. About experiencing life together. Coffee & donuts seem to be the Canadian symbol of community, so I thought that would be an appropriate way to start.

So I guess the real question today is: What is the role of community in your spiritual journey?

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Published September 26, 2012

What Does it Mean to be a Follower of Jesus Christ?


What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ?  This isn’t a test. You’re not going to be graded on your answers. But I want to get your minds thinking in that direction. What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ?

For the past several weeks we’ve been looking at this thing called “Your Spiritual Journey”. And we’ve been trying to answer three basic questions:

#1. Where am I in my spiritual journey?
#2. Where do I want to be?
#3. What steps do I need to take to get there?

We’ve been using Your Spiritual Journey Handout as a guide, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed this or not, but there are two main headings in this booklet. There is “Searching” on the left and “Following” on the right.

And so that’s what has led me to the question you’ve just been discussing – what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus Christ?

Because if the point of our spiritual journey is to move us from searching for God to following God, then its important for us to know exactly what it means to follow Him.

Is it simply that we’ve prayed a prayer and asked God to forgive our sins? Is that what this is all about? Does it mean we regularly attend church? Is that following Christ? Does it mean we’re trying to be more good and less bad? Is that following Christ? Or does following Christ mean something totally different?

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Published September 7, 2012

Your Spiritual Journey – Introduction

To start us off this morning, I need everyone to stand up.  I need everyone to stop moving for ten seconds… Become completely motionless when I say go. Ready…. Go.

Ok thank you, you can all sit down. That was a good effort, but you all did terrible. Not one of you came anywhere close to being completely motionless. For example, almost everyone of you continued breathing. Your lungs expanded and contracted with air several times. I saw you. So you were not motionless.

Now some of you went the extra mile and you held your breath. Very good – but still, you were a far cry from being motionless. While you were standing there, your blood was flowing through your veins and arteries at a speed of about 1 foot every second. That’s a lot of motion!

Also, if you had breakfast this morning, you had food moving through your digestive track at about 2 miles per hour. So while you thought you were standing still, the breakfast within you was on the move.

But that’s not all. Every atom and every molecule of your body is in constant motion. The nature of atoms is that they are always moving, vibrating, colliding with each other. In fact, its the movement of atoms that cause us to feel heat. When something gets hotter, it means that it’s atoms are moving faster. When something get colder, it means that it’s atoms are moving slower. So as long as there is some heat, there is some movement. That means, that unless your body temperature has dropped to -459º Fahrenheit, (which is what they call absolute zero), if you are not that cold, then the atoms in your body are still moving.

The fact is, we simply cannot remain motionless. It’s physically impossible. We are always moving. Even if we discount all those tiny motions that happen within our body that we just talked about, we are still in motion.

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Published February 10, 2008

Living on Strained Carrots

A jar of baby foodRecently I spoke at the chapel time for a Christian High School. It’s a little long for a devotional, but it can easily be chewed down to size. So without further ado, here is “Living on Strained Carrots”.

Game: Double or Nothing

Three contestants are blindfolded, and they try to guess what object they hold. If they are right, they win the object. Then if they correctly answer the bonus question about that object, they will double their prize. (Pop, Doritos, and a jar of baby food – for the bonus: What flavor?)

Imagine that it’s Christmas time. Christmas day, actually. All of your relatives have arrived and it’s time for the feast. There’s a big turkey (or ham or whatever your family usually eats complete with all the trimmings. There’s all this food just waiting to be consumed, some one asks the blessing on the food and everyone digs in – except you. For you, your mom or your dad cracks open a jar of Gerber’s “Broccoli, Potato, and Cheese Casserole” and start shoveling it in.

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