Today I'm continuing the path of describing what I see as "Spiritual Depth". The whole "deep" thing is a big deal in the church today. What is interesting is that I get the opportunity to talk to some of the greatest spiritual leaders in our country and they all deal with the same issue. It can be a church that reads out of the Greek every week, worships for 2 hours, and has a prayer meeting every day, but they are still "shallow". So I'm trying to take a few days to wrap my mind around this issue.
Today's characteristic: ENCOURAGER
Every person I have ever met that I consider to have "Spiritual Depth" is a tremendous encourager. That doesn't mean that they don't challenge you, they just do it in a way that adds life instead of knocking the air out of you. The encourager views relationships differently, the world differently, churches differently, and their role differently. They look at the possibilities in every situation instead of pointing out people's shortcomings.
When it comes to being involved with a church, they are always the ones who serve the most, pray the most, invite the most, etc. They are realists, knowing things aren't perfect. Trusting God's power is what makes a difference. They are full of opinions, but choose to keep the nonessential ones to themselves until they are asked. They are asked for their opinions because they challenge the heck out of you, but they don't demean you.
These people don't walk around with their "meter" on rating what is shallow or deep about a place or a person. They don't rate the worship, the talk, the Bible Study, etc. from a "Me First" point of view. They simply trust God, hear His voice, encourage everyone, and allow God to use them to help people to live into their potential.
They have a Spirit of Encouragement versus Spirit of Criticism.
I guess you could say they are "Christ like"! Christ was always encouraging people who were in over their heads that with Him all things were possible!
I want to live life as an encourager!
I think being an encourager is important and it's very nice to encourage one another.
Jesus also encouraged people who were sinful and out of step with God's will by being direct. The unbelieving generation (Luke 9), rebuking the pharisees and ministers to gentiles (Matthew 15), Rebuking religious hypocrisy (Matthew 23), Calling Peter "Satan" for being impetuous (Matt 16/Mark 8), etc.
God's word is deep, thoughtful and fascinating. We can walk around and pick up rocks or we can plumb the depths of it and mine the truth of it where there's gold. I wish I thought of that analogy.
Oh, and leaving an anonymous post on a website being so sharply critical of a pastor in the community who at least puts his name to his work is weak.
Posted by: Scott Goodspeed | November 05, 2008 at 01:46 PM