Is your spirit flagging? Do you feel dull and unmotivated when it comes to the things of God? Here's the reality. You are always limited by what you think and meditate on. If you’re neglecting an earnest pursuit of God’s Word and are, instead, feeding your flesh with Hollywood movies, political podcasts, and other worldly pursuits, your soul will become impoverished. To turn the tide, fervently seek God daily. In the words of J.C. Ryle, “Give your Bible the best and not the worst part of your time.” Seek the things of the Spirit and cultivate godliness. In doing this, your soul will be enriched, and you’ll reap good things.  

 

 

Let's focus in on Romans 8, 15 through 17. You have the whole doctrine of sonship and adoption, your spirit crying out, Abba Father. In the previous passage, we're talking about what it means to be led by the Spirit. And you're led by the Spirit by seeking the things of the Spirit. And God wants us to focus on the very, very most wonderful things.

Whatever's true, whatever's noble, whatever's just, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, what a wonderful God we have to focus our whole life on the very, very best things. And that's what it means to set your mind on the things of the spirit to be led of the spirit. But what if your spirit is flagging? What if you feel dull? What if you don't feel very, very motivated?

When people are passive, when they're not in hot pursuit of God, when they're not being challenged, even in their personal time, they kind of feel dead. It's almost always because they're neglecting really standard matters of discipleship and sanctification. Remember, sanctification is something that you do. If you quit exercising yourself for godliness, you will atrophy. And the person who's not feeling well often doesn't do anything about it.

They're not healthy. They don't do, they don't take action. And they just wait. They wait until they're depressed or they wait till something has to get amputated. They wait until they're going to have to go spend a week in the hospital.

But it all goes back to the feeding of the soul. It all goes back to sanctification. We have people in churches, they know way more about politics and their podcast than they know about their Bible. And it's all they can talk about because it's the only thing that they really spend their time doing. It was about 45 years ago, my wife and I were in the Long Beach Sports Arena and Keith Green was giving a concert.

And I'll never forget what he said. I mean he said it really angrily. He said, Jesus rose from the dead and you can't even get out of bed. And he's taught, he was talking about this whole matter of of reaping and sowing. Here's the reality.

You are always limited by what you plant. You're always limited by what you think, what's in your mind. What's in your mind limits you. Like if you plant corn, you've just limited what you're going to reap. You're going to get corn.

If you plant rye, you're going to be limited to rye. And this is what happens with us. We are limited because of what we have sown. All of this to say, if you're feeling listless and dead, there's a reason. And it's because of what you've been sowing, because it's just incontrovertible.

It's a law of life. Whatever you sow, you'll reap. There's just no way to beat the system. So I want to read something by J.C. Ryle.

Read the Bible daily. Make it part of your everyday business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. Gather your manna fresh every morning. Give your Bible the best and not the worst part of your time. So All of this to say, seek the things of the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, and cultivate the things that will really make you grow.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Scripture applied as a production of Church and Family Life. Visit churchandfamilylife.com for more resources.