AND THE CHILD GREW (1)

                Good morning dear reader. I believe you had a wonderful and peaceful night rest. I also trust that you enjoyed your last weekend before Christmas eve. For those visiting this blog for the first time, I welcome you to Espiritus Koinonia blog, a blog where our express desire is to bring you into a closer intimate relationship with the Godhead through Holy Spirit inspired write-ups. For those who have become constant visitors I sincerely apologize for having not written anything in such a long time. Busy schedule has clouded my mind and prevented me from waiting on the Lord for messages. I sincerely apologize. I also appreciate everyone of our readers for their constant visits and for helping us share to their friends, loved ones and enemies (smiles) to all social network in their country. God bless you richly in Jesus name. Amen.
      Luke 1:80
80

KJV:And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.

         I was in a program recently and a man was preaching on a topic that I have forgotten. He said some things that were touching but majority of what he preached didn't even align with scriptures. Then in my mind, I began to reason, this man should be in his late forties or early fifties and with his position in the church, he should have been minimum ten years a Christain believer. And yet he couldn't preach the gospel accurately ( I am not saying am better than him or bragging) . It pained me and for the first time I truly saw and understood that they were many Christians who haven't grown spiritually since their conversion. The level they were spiritually twenty-five years ago is were they still are, no progress, just empty fruitless bench warmer Christians. In my last post, I urged ministers, pastors, church leaders etc to press for more, to be more productive in their walk with and work for God. Please do read that previous post if you haven't it will bless you. In this post, I hope to address the issue of stunted spiritual growth amongst many believers. Bishop David Oyedepo once said, "There are no great men anywhere there are just great graces at work in the lives of mere men ". I see a lot of believers young and old alike who say, " I want to be like pastor Chris Oyakhilome, Bishop David Oyedepo, pastor Enoch Adeboye, Prophet T.B Joshua, Apostle Joshua Selman, Apostle Johnson Suleiman, Benny Hinn Rev. Reinhard Bonkke etc". But they are still stunted. All they ever do is mere wishful thinking. They are still where they where spiritually, no progress and after sometime, they begin to believe that great spiritual stature is reserved for specific few. But that is so not true. It is for everyone who knows the secret to it.
          In as much as this list of known secrets isn't exhaustive, I hope to give you basic insight on how you can grow spiritually. We will be treating seven of them. They include:  quiet time, honour, fasting and prayers, accountability, study, practice/exercise, pressing on. Now let's in our usual way treat each of them one by one.
1. Quiet time:
          This is the time you set aside in a day to be alone with God. It is aimed at feeding your spirit man through the study of the word of God and prayer so that you can be refreshed and empowered for a continuous victorious life over the sin nature and over the affairs of life. It is also a time to talk to God and he talk to you. Most persons do not believe that God can talk to them neither audibly nor to their spirit man. So they just rush through prayers. In as much as no man can give you a program of activities or agenda for how your quiet time should be, I can say this much. You should plan your quiet time in such a way that you enjoy God's presence. I read a story in a book I was given as a gift some years back. The man God uses by Oswald smith, in that book he narrated a story of a man whose business was dog fight. He had two dogs, one black, one white. He would take the dogs to a circus and made them fight against each other and the audience would bet on which dog would win. One onlooker asked the dog owner how do you do it that one wins the other. The man said he simply starves one dog and richly feeds the other one. I hope that story makes sense to you. I have seen a lot of believers who have been Christians for about ten years and still struggle to have a quiet time of thirty mins. Can you imagine?, do you expect to grow healthy spiritually with just thirty mins quiet time?, or even worse do you expect to grow at all spiritually by attending all the church programs and having no quiet time or personal relationship with God?
       Let's use natural growth for instance, just as you need physical food to grow physically so also you need spiritual food to grow spiritually. Just as you outgrew taking breast milk for physical growth so you should outgrow using thirty mins for your quiet time. If you are just learning this for the first time, you can start with thirty mins and you will see that the desire to be with God will make you spend more time with God. Glory. I read a story one time of a servant of God who prays eight hours everyday. Dr. Mike Murdock studies forty chapters of the bible everyday. When I read these facts, I told God, I may not be there yet but am pressing. Before I used to tell people to pick out a convenient time for them to have their quiet time with God because of their busy schedule but then I saw some thing from scripture that changed my mentality. Let me share with you.
   Dan 6:10
10

KJV:Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.
       Do you see that despite how busy Daniel was, he prayed three times a day. Now let me give you a hint of just how busy Daniel's schedule was. Daniel was directly in charge of all the wise men, dream interpreters, charmers, seers, diviners etc. that were in the kingdom of Medes. He was also one of the three presidents in charge of the 120 satraps that were over the 120 provinces in the kingdom of Medes. Probably you still don't understand, let me clarify, using Nigeria as a case study, for instance Daniel was one of the three presidents over the 120 governors of the 120 states of Nigeria. Then probably Daniel was over 40( division of labour) plus he was also in charge directly over all the wise men, seers, diviners etc in all the 120 states. To make matters worse, he was the King's favorite. I hope you know that if you are your boss' favourite staff, you will work more than others even though you will enjoy certain privileges. Despite all these, Daniel had time everyday to commune with God three times. Hear me sir, hear me ma, if you love God and desire to have alone time with God and please Him, convenient timing won't be an issue. You will immediately as soon as you finish reading this post, pick a time and by His grace you will keep to it in Jesus name. Amen.
       I hope you have been blessed by today's writeup. Please leave your comments or questions in the comment box and share this post with your friends, enemies and families if you have been truly blessed. Like our facebook page Espiritus Koinonia. You can also write to me by gmail anointedsavior1@gmail.com. The world is dire need of the word of God. Join us spread the Word. Join us on Wednesday as we treat more of these important secrets in the part 2. God bless you and do have a wonderful, fruitful and exciting week and day. Shalom!