Hindrances to Your Spiritual Development

Strangely the spirit is like a plant. Two organisms—one invisible, the other invisible—and yet they are very similar to each other.

They are very similar to each other in terms of growth or development, particularly in the hindrances to their development.

A plant grows or develops with the help of the sunlight, the soil, the freedom from predators, adjustment to climate, and the help of human beings.

So also similar factors help in the development of the human spirit.

This article discusses the hindrances to spiritual development. You can develop faster spiritually if these hindrances are overcome or eliminated in your life.

First Hindrance to Spiritual Development: Lack of Exposure to the Word of God

A plant needs sunlight. This is very basic to its growth. It cannot be kept indoors most of the time, unlike animals and human beings. In a similar way the human spirit needs the sunlight of God’s Word.

The Scriptures say that the Word of God is a light to the path of the righteous. The sun not only gives light, it also gives out heat and warmth. The Word of God also warms the heart of spiritual persons.

Failure to expose the spiritual person to the Word of God is the number one hindrance to spiritual development. This exposure, like the exposure of the plant to the sunlight, needs to be done daily.

Second Hindrance to Spiritual Development: Lack of Engagement with the Problems of the World

Plants need soil in order to develop. Today we know that there are plants which are no longer planted on soil. Some species of plants just hang on air. Other kinds grow on water or some kind of liquid. But even these grow above the ground and are nourished by substances which are naturally found in soil, like nitrogen.

In a similar manner human spirits need the spiritual soil, the events happening to their lives around them. They move in the midst of world events. Even the hermit or the most enclosed monk is surrounded by air, vegetation, buildings, electromagnetic waves which make available information about the events around him with the touch of an electronic gadget. These events spur the spiritual person to live on, to pursue spiritual growth. After all he develops spiritually in order to be of benefit to others. The human spirit who lives only for himself is more barren than the most barren of deserts.

The life of Thomas Merton helps us reflect on the idea of spiritual soil. He was a Trappist monk, a member of one of the strictest Order in the Church. And yet he did not live just by and for himself. He thought of the world around him and wrote of the many things he observed around him. Because of this he developed spiritually faster than his brother monks and left us lots of spiritual food.

The second hindrance to spiritual development is forgetfulness of the world around us, a forgetfulness that is like uprooting a plant from the soil.

Third Hindrance to Spiritual Development: Inappropriate Spiritual Climate

A plant needs to adjust to an appropriate climate. There are some plants, like bananas, which cannot grow in cold places where snow abounds. Other plants cannot grow well in warm climate, like apples.

In a similar manner human spirits need the proper spiritual climate for their development. There were two periods in the Christian Church history when there was an abundance of saints: the first centuries when there were persecutions, and the Middle Ages when Christian learning flourished in Europe.

The third hindrance to spiritual development is an inappropriate spiritual climate. When most people turn to material comforts as a way of life, their spiritual development is suffocated by the things around them. But when more and more people react against materialism, more spiritual development is bound to happen.

Fourth Hindrance to Spiritual Development: Envy and Maliciousness of Evil Spirits

Plants can be stunted in their development by predators: human beings, animals, or fellow plants. Some human beings cut plants indiscriminately. Animals graze on plants. Other plants which grow faster and therefore consume more nutrients from the soil may grow very near to less fortunate plants, stunting their growth.

In a similar way, there are spiritual predators, spirits who envy our human spiritual development and thwart it. Paul the Apostle warns us that our real enemies are spirits who roam this world. They too hinder our spiritual development. They are the fourth hindrance to spiritual development.

Fifth Hindrance to Spiritual Development: Lack of Good Spiritual Directors or Coaches

Plants tended to by a human gardener develop faster and better. Wild plants do develop. But plants in a garden cared for by a human being develop more.

In a similar way, human spirits who have good spiritual directors develop faster and better. We now have spiritual coaches who guide others in their spiritual path. Some of these coaches are good, others are not so good. The fifth hindrance to spiritual development is lack of a good spiritual director or coach.

These are the hindrances to spiritual development: 1) lack of daily exposure to the Word of God; 2) forgetfulness of the events around us; 3) inappropriate spiritual climate; 4) spiritual predators, spirits who envy our human spiritual development and thwart it; 5) lack of a good spiritual director or coach.

It is up to you now to discern which of these hindrances are more effectively hindering your spiritual development. Then you seek ways to get rid of or minimize these hindrances.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

Removing the Obstacle to the Spread of Genuine Christianity

The 788 and more plans to evangelize the world from the beginning of Christianity, documented by Barrett and Reapsome in their book SEVEN HUNDRED PLANS TO EVANGELIZE THE WORLD, have not successfully fulfilled the great Commission of spreading genuine, as opposed to nominal, Christianity.

Reason for Failure in Evangelization

Why? The reason is because we have this mentality of giving to the task of spreading real Christianity only what is extra, what we can spare after deducting what we require for our personal, family and social needs from our earnings. That is the obstacle to the accomplishment of the task of spreading genuine Christianity around the world in our generation.

And how do we remove this obstacle? Simply, by getting rid of this mentality and putting in its stead the attitude that this task is the most important work of our life and that it deserves all our finances.

But how do we do this in practice?

Failure of Attempts at Evangelizing Work

Those who enter the religious order or congregation do give all their earnings to their respective order or congregation. They do not withhold anything for their personal, family or social needs. They left their families, so they see no obligation to support them, except in very specific circumstances of dire need. Their personal needs, like food, clothing and shelter, are taken care of by their religious group or order. And their social needs, like recreation and personal interrelationships, are also taken care of by the order or congregation.

The question now is: By their giving of all their earnings to the order or congregation have they done what they should do to fulfill the great commission? Certainly not. Many nominal Christians still live even just outside the confines of their monasteries or religious houses. Perhaps they themselves are still nominal Christians.

They give all and yet the work is still not done. What happens is that the funds are devoted to the well being and spread of the order or congregation and not to the spread of the good news.

Let us take another case. There are church and para-church organizations which purportedly exist to fulfill the great commission. There are hundreds of them. Almost all Christians have come across some of them, like Campus Crusade for Christ, The Navigators, Overseas Missionary Fellowship International, etc. These organizations are spending millions of dollars for their ministries. The crucial question is: Have they successfully fulfilled the great commission? The answer of Barrett and Reapsome in the book I cited is that they are nowhere near the target of fulfilling that great commission.

Why? A sizable amount of the donations they receive goes into meeting their personal, family and social needs instead of being spent for the spread of the good news.

Notice the websites of these organizations, they have a button for donations. Almost all of these organizations think that the donations contribute to the spread of the good news. If we investigate this carefully, the opposite is true. Those donations hinder the spread of the good news. I learned this the hard way.

There is the mentality even among Christians that organizations can do more than individuals. If one person can tell 10 other persons about the good news an organization of 100 persons can do more than that one person, maybe more than 100 times. They tend to forget that after a while the purpose of that organization will be to maintain itself in existence.

The only practical solution I see in this is for individuals who are convinced of fulfilling this great commission to work and earn something for the explicit purpose of funding their ministry, like what Paul of Tarsus did.

The objection we often hear is that the minister of evangelization or evangelism would be more fruitful if he devotes all his time to the ministry and others enable him to do this by giving him their tithes or love gifts. But as we can see this objection is not really valid. A greater percentage of what is given to this minister goes to his personal, family and social needs, instead of being spent for the spread of the good news.

Removing This Obstacle

If we are going to be really serious in spreading genuine Christianity we have to give all that we earn to this task, saving only a little amount for our sustenance.

When Christians are spiritually awakened from their centuries’ sleep in missions we shall have an ever widening spread of genuine Christianity among us. It is indeed a long overdue time for spiritual awakening.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

The Obstacle To The Spread Of Genuine Christianity

In 1988 there have been 788 plans to evangelize the world from the beginning of Christianity. These plans were documented by Barrett and Reapsome in their book SEVEN HUNDRED PLANS TO EVANGELIZE THE WORLD.

Today 22 years later it is possible that there have been already more than 1,000 plans to evangelize the world, an increase of 212 more plans from the publication of that book.

And yet the conclusion of Barrett and Reapsome in their book on page 66 is still very true and very sadly so: We have not yet fulfilled the great Commission of spreading Christianity as we should.

Why? Why have we failed in spreading genuine Christianity around the world?

The Obstacle: Giving Only What Is Extra

There is one obstacle which has not been seen by almost all Christian leaders. This is the obstacle I want to discuss in this article.

This obstacle is most clearly described in an advertisement of a Church for getting funds to support its projects.

The advertisement airs a conversation between two elementary kids. One says that he will spend this much for transportation to and back from the school, another amount for snacks, then finally there is an extra 3 cents which he will give to the project of the church.

The second kid asks, What can 3 cents do for that project? It is too small an amount.

And the first kid retorts, If these 3 cents are combined with other 3 cents they can do a lot; they can save lives.

That is the advertisement. The Church that puts up this advertisement hopes to generate a sizable amount for its projects, like evangelization.

And that is the weakness of almost all the plans to evangelize the world, to spread genuine Christianity around the world. They rely on funds that are the extra or what is left behind after personal, family and social needs are met.

In 1977 100 billionaires from the United States of America bankrolled a project called Here’s Life World. Indeed those billionaires gave a lot, but still it was the extra amount they could afford to foot the bill of that project. What was the result of this project? By the end of 1980 which was its target date it had not even increased genuine Christians by a 10 percent in population. It was a failure.

Why? Because the funds used for the project were only the extra that those billionaires could spare for such a project.

The obstacle to the spread of genuine Christianity is our mentality in giving to the project of spreading real Christianity all around us. We give only to the project what is extra, what we can spare after deducting from our earnings for our personal, family and social needs.

Give It Your All

If we are going to be really serious in spreading genuine Christianity we have to give all that we earn for this project, saving only a little amount for our sustenance.

The best example is still Paul the Apostle. He worked as a tent maker. The reason why he worked as a tent maker was not to meet his personal, family and social needs. The reason was in order that he would have something to spend for his mission of spreading Christianity among the non-Jews of his day. And he succeeded in a most outstanding manner.

When Christians are spiritually awakened from their centuries’ sleep in missions we shall have an ever widening spread of genuine Christianity among us. It is indeed a long overdue time for spiritual awakening.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

A Cure For That Infamous Decree

When we commit a mistake and we realize that we have committed such a mistake the sensible thing to do is to correct our mistake. And we usually do this immediately in order to offset the committing of more mistakes.

But there are mistakes which seem to resist correction not only for days but even for centuries. This resistance to correction is made by men who are supposed to have scientific knowledge of the mistake made.

The Mistake in Astronomy

Take the case of the teaching about the movement of the earth and the sun. From 150 A.D. (and even before this by Aristotle and his followers) it was taught by scientists and learned men of the Church that the earth was a stationary planet in the center of the universe and the other planets and the sun revolved around it. It is obvious to us now that this is not true. You remember this as the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. This was corrected in 1543, more than 13 centuries later, by Copernicus but his correction was not accepted by the scientists of his day. In 1616 Galileo tried to prove that Copernicus was correct but instead of accepting this correction he was condemned by the Inquisition and remained until his death under house arrest. More centuries followed before the Church leaders accepted the correction of Galileo and acknowledged their mistake. This was done by John Paul II on October 31, 1992. He acknowledged that the church leaders had committed a mistake and correction was to be made about this.

A Greater Mistake Than That in Astronomy

But there is a mistake more serious than that committed by the church leaders on the case of Galileo. It is a mistake with more disastrous consequences not just for science and scientists but for ordinary people like you and me. And billions of people have suffered because of this mistake. And this mistake has not yet been corrected by the church leaders or by the successors of those who committed this mistake.

I am referring to that infamous decree made by the Roman emperor Theodosius on February 27, 380 making Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire. This was a most tragic mistake, the worst that any emperor made, because it involved falsifying the teachings of Jesus. And yet this mistake has not been corrected yet, after more than 1,600 years.

No church leader nor successor of the Emperor Theodosius has come out and publicly acknowledged that this decree was a tragic mistake and needs to be corrected.

Stages in Correcting This Disastrous Mistake

The first stage in the cure for this infamous decree then is to convince the church leaders, even the successor of Emperor Theodosius as Pontifex Maximus (one of the titles of the Roman Pope), to come up with a public acknowledgement of the mistake made, just like what John Paul II did in the case of Galileo.

This revocation of that decree would release all those who were made Christians by that decree from all their obligations. They would be given a chance to start all over again or deny Christianity as their religion.

The second stage in the cure is to put back the practice of the catechumenate and improve it. Some churches have already done this, the most successful that I know of is that of the Church of Christ founded by Felix Manalo in the Philippines. Before a person is received into this Church he has to undergo 28 lessons in the fundamental doctrines of the Church, then he has to attend 15 weeks of group prayer meetings before he can be screened for baptism.

The third stage in the cure is to follow up on new members to make sure that they develop in their spiritual life.

In this time of spiritual awakening when more and more persons in all churches are spiritually awakened and there is uneasiness and spiritual hunger for genuine Christianity—and the signs of a spiritual awakening are all around us—we need to wake up spiritually and see where have our church leaders committed mistakes and convince them to correct these mistakes.

Only when the mistake about that infamous decree of Theodosius has been corrected and cured will we have the beginnings again of real genuine Christianity spreading among us.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

7 Obstacles To Genuine Christianity

Why do we have very few genuine Christians? Why do we have countries which are populated mostly by Christians and yet their crime rate and human rights abuses are also one of the highest in the world?

This is because there are so many obstacles to the making of genuine Christians. I mention 7 in this article.

When people are on the process of spiritual awakening they can see more clearly these obstacles to genuine Christianity. When they are spiritually awakened, they try to get rid of these obstacles. This is because they have that uneasiness and spiritual hunger for genuine spirituality. As we experience these signs of a spiritual awakening we wake up spiritually and face these obstacles with courage and summon the strength to get rid of them.

The first obstacle is something that was done a long time ago but whose effect has gone down through the centuries reaching us and we do not know for how long this obstacle will still oppose genuine Christianity. This obstacle is the decree of the Roman emperor Theodosius promulgated on February 27, 380 making Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire, thus outlawing all other religions.

Because of this decree thousands upon hundreds of thousands of people became Christians without really knowing what Christianity was. In other words the Church was infiltrated, nay inundated, by nominal Christians. This situation persists today.

The second obstacle was the abandonment of the catechumenate, the process lasting for 3 years whereby adults were educated in the Christian faith before baptism. This was compounded by the baptism of infants. There would have been no problem even with infant baptism if the catechumenate was faithfully followed. But it was not so. People were baptized who did not know what they were going into and infants grew up without being educated in the Christian faith. The result has been the increase in the number of nominal Christians.

Today there is a program of catechumenate for adults and some kind of post-baptismal catechumenate but the genuine catechumenate producing genuine Christians is no longer implemented.

The third obstacle is the idea being floated around that to be a Christian all you need to do is to be a good person in your respective church. If you believe in the teaching of your church and you follow its ordinances and rituals, then you are a Christian. Crusades upon crusades have been conducted to disabuse people of this idea, but this idea persists among the members of the churches and even among non-members of Christian churches.

The fourth obstacle is the idea also being floated around that all you need to be a Christian is to be baptized. This is especially common among Catholics. They think that by having their babies baptized they have been turned into Christians. This is a misunderstanding of the ex opere operato (literally "from the work having been worked") doctrine of the Catholic Church. This doctrine states that if a sacrament is validly administered then it effects what it is supposed to effect, even if the one who administers the sacrament is a great sinner. When we apply this to baptism, it means that if the baptism is validly administered, then the effect of the sacrament is there, the grace of God is given. But it does not mean that by the mere fact of baptism the one baptized is a genuine Christian. It only means that the grace of baptism is given to the one baptized.

The fifth obstacle to genuine Christianity is related to the one mentioned above. It is the preoccupation of Christian leaders with the externals like church building, church attendance, paintings, sculptures, shrines, etc. The time devoted to these things takes them away from the time to be devoted to the essentials of Christianity: living the life of Christ, preaching what he has done, teaching his character and attitudes, etc.

The sixth obstacle is the neglect of the spiritual life. This is partly due to the fact that most people still think that the human being is composed of body and soul only. They do not think of the spirit as an essential component of the human person. They think that the soul and the spirit are the same. When you do not think that the human person has also a spirit you will not care about the spirit, since you think it is non-existing or is the same as the soul.

The seventh obstacle to genuine Christianity is the imposition of one’s interpretation of Scripture on others. Teachers of the Bible forget that the Scripture is rich in meanings and cannot be exhausted. So, different churches are built on different interpretations of the Scriptures. This is an obstacle to genuine Christianity because it gives the impression that Christians cannot agree or cannot be tolerant on certain points of the Scripture. Christianity then becomes a following of this or that interpretation of Scripture rather than of living the life Christ, which is what genuine Christianity is.

These obstacles continue to oppose genuine Christianity. Until when? We do not know. But until these obstacles are gotten rid of we will continue to have very few genuine Christians.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

Effecting or Implementing Genuine Christianity

In times like these when people are searching for something that they can depend on, when the lure of materialism has so miserably disappointed them, when everywhere people are looking for something that works, Christians and even non-Christians are looking for genuine Christians. How then do we effect or implement genuine Christianity so that we shall have genuine Christians around us?

There have been many books written and programs designed to supposedly effect or implement genuine Christianity. But the impact of the ideas in these books and of the activities in these programs seems to be negligible when viewed from a wider perspective. They have not really made the impression that here at last is something that works and works well, is surely effective in the making of a genuine Christian, anywhere, in whatever condition of life, in rich or poor countries, in the northern or in the southern part of the world.

I propose 5 steps in the effecting or implementing of genuine Christianity.

Step 1. Live Christ. This is most basic and most essential and yet is missing in our programs. These programs want and teach Christ to be the center of life, but nowhere can we read in Scripture that Jesus wants to be the center of our life. He is our life, not the center of it. Paul the Apostle said, For me to live is Christ. He did not say that Christ was the center of his life.

Remember that illustration of a circle where Christ represented by the cross is at the center? And the Ego or I is down below him? This was supposed to be the image of a spiritual Christian, where Christ is the center of life and all the other details of a person’s life revolves around him. This kind of Christianity where Christ is only one of the elements of our life, although supposed to be the most important and in the center, cannot effect genuine Christianity.

The life that can effect genuine Christianity is a life not just Christ-centered but Christ-lived. Jesus lives through and through that life and is not just its center.

And how is the life of Christ effected? We go to step 2.

Step 2 is pray Christ. We do not say pray to Christ. We do not even say pray with Christ. What I mean is pray Christ, pray the Christ prayer, the prayer of Jesus as he prays to the Father. Jesus is the one who is the central person who prays. His principal work now is prayer. We are in him, we realize that we are praying him, we are praying his prayer. This is not a five times a day or even fifty times a day prayer. Just as Christ prays always we always pray. Sure we go to special times of prayer, but even outside of these times we still pray. We pray when we sleep, when we rise up, when we prepare for work, when we go to work, when we rest, etc. Our whole day is a day of prayer in Christ. The Spirit of Jesus enables us to pray the prayer of Christ always, throughout the day and night.

Step 3. Preach Christ. Do not just preach something about him. Preach him and what he did. Announce to the world and all who he is, describe him and his wonderful, lovable qualities. Preach him as one who is not just a figure of history but as the great Presence at the present time, as the person most interested about us and them.

Listen to preachers who preach Christ and him crucified. Nowadays with the Internet you can choose your preacher, you can choose your personal pastor. Just beware of impostors. There are plenty of them.

Step 4. Teach Christ. Again it is not enough to teach about him. Teach him. Discuss him with other Christians. Let others talk of him. Draw out the opinions of others about him and lead them to what the Scriptures say of him. Most of all do not teach morality, that people are supposed to follow this and that commandment. This is Phariseeism and Jesus condemned it in no uncertain terms.

Learn from teachers who teach Christ and not their own ideas. You can find them in the Internet. Again be wary of fake teachers of the Christ.

Step 5. Serve Christ. When you help somebody be aware that it is Christ you are helping, not just this person with his need. Jesus has identified himself with all of humanity, and when you serve a member of that humanity, you are serving Christ.

And let Christ serve. As you live his life he wants to serve others through you. Allow him to do just that. Then the ones you are serving will feel the love of Christ.

When these steps are done we shall have a real spiritual awakening as more and more Christians are spiritually awakened and aware of what genuine Christianity is. There are indeed signs of a spiritual awakening around us as people have this uneasiness and spiritual hunger for the real kind of Christianity.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritworld for knowing more about spirituality or spiritual realities

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.