CAPTAIN’S BLOG

Q: Captain Kirk, how can I develop my spiritual life?
A: Nobody wants to be spiritually dead. You certainly don't. If you did, you wouldn't be on this web site. Many people want to grow spiritually but don't. Why? What prevents people from growing spiritually? How can I develop my spirit?

Jesus once told the story in the Bible, (Luke 8:4-15) which illustrates the three common barriers that keep you from growing spiritually. He also gave us in the story the three keys to growing to your full potential.

Jesus once told the story in the Bible, which illustrates the three common barriers that keep you from growing spiritually. He also gave us in the story the three keys to growing to your full potential.

He says there’s a farmer that goes out to sow seed. In the old days they would literally spread it with their hands. As this farmer throws the seed out, it falls on four different kinds of soil. These represent different responses to God. Later on Jesus interprets the story. He says the farmer in the story represents God and the seed represents the word of God to you. The soil represents your attitude, your heart, your responsiveness to what God wants to do. He says if you learn from this story, you’ll learn the keys to growing spiritually.

He says if I want to grow spiritually…

1. I must BE receptive to God.

I must want to grow, be eager, ready to grow. I must be spiritually receptive. The primary reason people don’t grow is real obvious: They don’t want to grow. They are spiritually unreceptive.

When you came to this web page you showed a degree of receptiveness to learning spiritual truth. There are millions of people right now on the Internet who are not in anyway interested in spiritual things. They're hardened spirits. Jesus says this is like the first kind of soil.

Luke 8:5, “A farmer went out to plant some seed and he scattered it across his field. Some seed fell on a footpath where it was stepped on. And the birds came and they ate it.” Then in v. 12, He gives us the meaning of this. “The hard path where some seed fell represents the hard hearts of those who hear the words of God but the devil comes and steals the words away and prevents people from believing and being saved.”

On every farm there are footpaths the farmer walks as he walks through his crops. Because he walks over and over them, the soil gets compacted. There are two things true of a footpath. One, it’s very hard. Two, it’s narrow. A lot of peoples’ minds are like that. They’re hard. They’ve got hardening of the attitude. They’re closed minded. And they’re very narrow minded. When the seed gets thrown on this kind of hard-packed soil it doesn’t even have a chance to penetrate. The birds come along and eat it before it can even take root because it just lays on the surface and doesn’t even get a chance to sprout.

What He’s saying is this first kind of soil – the hardened path hardened soil represents a closed mind.

The question then is what causes people to be closed to God? Why is it when sometimes you bring up the issue of God, people go, “Wait a minute! I don’t want to talk about that!” You can see the walls go up! You can always know it’s one of three reasons people close their minds:

The first reason we close our minds to God is fear. Obviously if we’re afraid of God, we’re not going to want to get close to Him. We’re not going to want to grow spiritually. We’re afraid. We think, “If I get close to God, what if He asks me to do something I don’t want to do? What if He turns me into a religious nut, running around going ‘Praise the Lord!’ Pronouncing Jesus like, ‘Jeeesus.’ “What if I lose my freedom and I can’t have fun anymore?” And if you are afraid of God, it’s obvious you’re going to close your mind, you’re going to harden your mind.

The second reason people close down to God is bitterness – resentment over some way that they’ve been hurt in the past. They think about that hurt and think, “God, why did You allow this to happen?” You cannot grow and have bitterness at the same time. And you’re angry at God.

There’s a third block and that’s pride. Pride keeps me from being receptive to God. We think, “I'm self sufficient. I can handle it. As a result if I don't think I need God, or if I'm afraid of God or if I'm angry at God it’s obvious I'm not going to be receptive to God.

Here’s the problem. An unreceptive, hard heart, closed mind is a barren lifestyle. Nothing can grow there. Jesus said the seed gets thrown on it. It does no sprouting. The birds come along and eat it. This life is for the birds! It’s a wasted life. It isn’t going to work. So if you want to grow you first have to say, “God help me to be receptive to You.”

2. I MUST BE RESOLVED TO GROW.

That means I’ve got to make a decision, resolution, a commitment. I have to accept responsibility for my own spiritual growth. If you don’t get anything else out of this page, get this: Spiritual growth, spiritual maturity is a choice. You are as close to God as you want to be. If you’re not spiritually mature, it’s because you’ve chosen to not be spiritually mature. If you want to grow you must resolve to grow. Make a decision. Without resolution, without commitment you’re never going to grow spiritually. Instead, without being resolved to grow, you’re going to live a pretty shallow, superficial life.

Jesus said this: Verse 6, “Other seed fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. This seed began to grow but soon it withered and died for lack of moisture.” What’s He talking about here? When you plant things there the roots need to grow to a certain depth for the plant to be stabilized. If the roots hit rock in a shallow soil, the plant will not be firmly rooted.

Jesus is saying a lot of people are like this. In verse 13, “Some people are like the seeds on rocky soil. They welcome the word with joy whenever they hear it, but they don’t develop any roots. They believe for a while but when their faith is tested they abandon it.”

Jesus is saying that the shallow soil represents a superficial commitment. Hard soil represents a closed mind; shallow soil represents a superficial commitment.

Notice He says, “These people welcome the word with joy.” Notice it says: “with joy”. Have you ever gotten excited when you heard a sermon or message that really touched you? But you walk out the door and you forget it. Because there’s no root, no depth. How many people do you know who were once vocal about their faith and today are still spiritual midgets?

What is it that keeps us growing? One word: commitment. You put down roots by making and keeping commitments. When you make a commitment and then you keep that commitment, that inevitably puts down roots in your life. Where do you start? Let me give you five commitments to help you get started.

1. I commit to connect with others. When you decide to spend time around other people who want to grow spiritually you begin to become like the people you spend the most time with. If I look at my own life, I’d love to say that any spiritual growth has happened because I'm so spiritually minded. But that’s not true. The truth is that any growth that I’ve ever seen in my life is because I’ve been hanging around other people that are growing at the same time. That’s the number one factor to helping you grow – the encouragement of other people.
2. I commit to build spiritual habits. If I want to spend some time in God’s word I’ve got to make a commitment to do it as a habit. If I want to talk to God in prayer it doesn’t come natural, I’ve got to make a commitment to do it. To build these spiritual habits as a part of life.
3. I commit to use my talents, to take whatever gifts, whatever abilities God’s given me and use them to help somebody else. Because when I do that, not only are they helped but I grow.
4. I commit to share my faith, to tell other people the good news about what God has done in my life.
5. I commit to fulfill my purpose. The reason God put me on this earth to bring glory to Him, the reason God put me on this earth to make a difference in the world.

Make these commitments, start to send down roots in these areas, and you begin to grow spiritually. There a third step you need to take if you want to grow. Get a real attitude.

3. I MUST BE RUTHLESS WITH DISTRACTIONS.

Things that keep me from really growing, I must be ruthless with distractions. Your most important objective in life is to grow spiritually. Once you know Jesus Christ, it’s more important than your job. If you miss this you have wasted your life. What we’re talking about is no small matter. It is the most important thing in your life after you’ve come to know Christ.

Because of that, there are all kinds of distractions. The devil will think up all kinds of things to keep you from growing spiritually. He will do things to get you off track and there are lots of things that can steal your focus. There are lots of problems and events that can waste your time and energy, dampen your enthusiasm for growing spiritually.

The Bible calls these distractions weeds. The weeds grow up in your life and begin to choke out the spiritual growth so you don’t have any vitality to get to know God. You don’t have any vitality to become what He wants you to be. Jesus says the third type of soil represents this barrier to growth. He says in verse 7, “Some seed fell among thorny weeds. But the weeds grew up and choked the good plants.”

Verse 14, “The thorny ground represents those who hear and accept the message but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares and riches and pleasures of this life. So they never grow into maturity.”

Notice the word “choked” in v. 7 and “crowded out” in verse 14. He says the seed sprouts in your life and you begin to grow spiritually but after a while it’s choked out by weeds. It’s crowded out and it can’t bear fruit.

This is the third barrier that keeps you from growing spiritually. One, closed mind and hard heart. Two, superficial commitment, shallow living, never really intending to grow. Three, a crowded life. An overcrowded life. When I get so many things in my life that crowd out God, I’ve got this overcrowded life and it chokes out my spiritual vitality. Why are there so many people who live unproductive lives? An overcrowded life.

Buckshot goes in every direction. Live life like a bullet. One target. One destination. Living for and audience of One.Point “A” to point “B” and then it hits the mark. Why are there many people that become believers but they never grow, they never bear fruit, they never grow to maturity? An overcrowded life. Are any of you vaguely familiar with this situation? Laser light of light diffused.

What is a weed? A weed is anything that crowds out God. It could be a good thing. It could be my education, it could be my career, it could be my hobby, it could be television, it could be fun things to do, it could be my interests. But anything that crowds out God and keeps me from growing spiritually becomes a weed. And it grows up in my life and it chokes out my spiritual growth.

The easiest thing in the world today is to be busy. The hardest thing today is to be busy doing the right things. You can be very busy and still be unproductive, not really producing anything. You’re just doing a lot of activity, running around in circles. Sometimes we can get so distracted by the concerns and the plans and the worries and activities, we don’t grow. Because we don’t have time for God. We don’t have time to pray and talk to God. We don’t have time to sit down and spend a little time reading His Bible every day. I don’t have time to go to a midweek Bible Study. I don’t have time to get connected with other Christians. I don’t have time to be in a small group. You’re too busy!

Jesus, in this verse points out three kinds of weeds.

1. Cares. The cares of life. The problems and the pressures and the worries of life – the stress of your social life. Trying to fit in with everybody please everybody can’t be done.
2. Riches. Riches can choke your vitality. You can be so busy making money, you don’t have time for spiritual growth.
3. Pleasures can be a weed. You can be too busy having fun that you forget God. “Sorry! Don’t have time. I'm going to the beach… out to the golf course… to the movies.”

There are many different kinds of weeds that will choke your spiritual growth. What does it take to grow weeds? In your backyard, how much effort does it take to grow weeds? Zero! Zip! It doesn’t take anything! Do you have to plan the weeds in your lawn? No. Do you have to fertilize the weeds in your garden? No. Weeds are always the sign of one thing – neglect. When I neglect my lawn, weeds grow. They’re a sign that I’ve slacked off.

What do you do with weeds? (In my previous life I would have said, “Smoke ‘em!”) Rip them out! Uproot them! Eliminate them! Get rid of them! Some of you know I have a weed problem in my yard right now. I hate weeds with a passion! I'm not polite to weeds. I don’t say, “May I please pull you out?” I am rude to weeds. In fact, I hate weeds so much I use Roundup. Roundup is that stuff you spray on and kills those suckers to the root. I got holes all over my yard now! I don’t want to pull of the top of a dandelion and have it grow back in three weeks. And I use industrial strength Roundup in the six-gallon can and I strap it on like John Goodman in Arachnophobia. I'm serious. I'm going to kill all those suckers!

What do you need to weed out in your life? Some of you need to use some spiritual Roundup. You need to be ruthless in eliminating distractions. So what needs to be uprooted? I want to pause right now and I want you to think of one thing you need to stop doing so you can have more time for spiritual growth for getting to know God. Think of one thing in your schedule that’s pulling you away from God. It may be good but it’s pulling you away from God. You might even need to write it down. If we aren’t ruthless in eliminating distractions, we end up wasting our lives.

Have any of these three barriers caused you to stop growing?

A closed mind? “I'm afraid to get close to God! I'm mad at God! I don't need God!” Your heart has grown cold and barren.

A superficial commitment? I get full of joy. I love going to church. I don’t intend to do anything about it but I love going to church. And as soon as I walk out I'm forgetting what we talked about. I'm going to Starbucks!

An overcrowded life? Are you too busy for the most important things in life?

What we’re talking about is of utmost importance. First, you need to cultivate an open attitude toward God: Will I remove distractions – or – will the weeds choke out my spiritual vitality? Will you root out the distractions?

Second, you make a commitment – a decision – to say, Am I resolved to grow – or – am I superficial and weak in my commitment? Will you commit to grow?

Am I receptive to God – or - am I narrow minded & hard hearted? Will you pray: “anywhere, anytime, anyhow and with anyone and at any cost?”

I want to warn you. As soon as you finish reading this Satan is going to try to steal that seed. Don't let him con you.

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Officers: Envoys Bruce and Lara Kirk