Christian Spirituality Means to
Learn How To Pray
Christian Spirituality is a mission adventure for millions of people. Mostly, those who thrive to improve their own spiritual lives and teach their children. Everyone must learn to pray. It is simple! Just talk to God like you talk to your best friend. He likes that and listens! Talking to God and reading Scripture is best done daily. You will form a good relationship with your Lord and Savior just doing those two things every day.
If you really think you lack the knowledge of how to pray or how to properly read Scripture, here is a suggestion. To help you understand how, and to live a morally rich life, is to read Christian books. Matthew Kelly is my favorite! He is a great Christian writer and all his books are easy reads and spiritually inspiring. Christians, all worship the same God and all strive for a relationship with their God. Matthew shows Christians how easy it is to live a good spiritual life. He is the author of many great books. You will love them as much as I do for sure!
Learning by example is very effective. Stories are often the best examples when we read Christian stories.
Christian Spirituality in Action
A Father teaches His Son
Have you heard the story about the little boy with the big hot temper? With a bag of nails, the boy’s wise father gave them to the boy. The father said, every time you lose your temper, you must hammer a nail into the back of the fence.
On Day 1, 37 nails were hammered into the fence by the boy. In the following weeks, the number of nails got less and less as the boy began to control his temper. He learned it was much easier to control his temper than hammering nails into the fence.
Then, the day came when the boy did not lose his temper, not even once. When the boy happily told his father the good news, the father now told him to pull out one nail for each day the he held his temper. As the days passed, the young boy told his father the he pulled out all the nails.
Son and the Lesson
Taking the boy’s hand, the father walked the boy to the fence. You really did great, my son, but look at the fence. With all those holes, that fence will never look good again! It is the same when you lose your temper and say nasty things. They leave a scar just like the damage to the fence! You can put a knife in a man and then pull it out. It does not matter how many times you claim you are sorry, the man still has the wound. There is no difference between a verbal scar or a physical one. A verbal wound leaves a scar just like this one in the fence.
You must remember that friends are treasures just like very rare jewels. Friends share words of kindness. They make you laugh and they cheer you on to succeed. Friends listen to you and will lend an ear whenever you need to talk and get things off your chest. Their hearts are always open to us and they are quick to praise you. Control your temper and do not wound anyone!
Please forgive me If I have ever left a hole in your fence! I will never wound you again! I am honored to have you for My Friend!
Resisting Happiness
One of my favorites books by Matthew Kelly is “Resisting Happiness”. He has a talent to reach his readers with powerful messages. He realizes how much we sabotage our own morality and happiness. We rush through life without giving much thought about where we are heading. Without much thought, we celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, graduations and all special occasions. Do we celebrate our God in our daily lives or our special occasions? It is easy to include Him in our daily living.
A tornado of activity gets all our attention! Pausing, pondering and planning with our spouse is essential. We discuss the legacy we hope for our children. Depression demands we see a psychologist! And, we continue to fight depression with the pills they prescribe. Are you aware that God is a psychologist? He listens for as long as you want to talk and never charges you a dime!
Break an arm or leg and we curse the interruption in our normal routine of work, life and vacations. We lose work, pay the doctor and cancel the vacation! Do we ever really live? God wants to know all of it. He wants to hear your complaining and your whining. But tell him the good stuff when it happens too! Do we remember our Creator in what we call living? How much of living do we take for granted? Are we living or existing? Trust your life to God.
Christian Spirituality – The Differences
Different Religions have various services. Catholics have the Mass. The climax includes the Consecration and Transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. Every religion has their traditional services, but we all are worshiping the same God. We grow in the garden where we are planted until and unless we transplant according to our changing minds and hearts.
The Roman Catholic Church had European exclusivity until the 16th century Reformation. This movement introduced Protestant sects. King Henry VIII’s separation from the Catholic Church opened England to Protestant worship.
Evangelical churches are branches of the Protestant churches beginning during the Reformation. Roman Catholics and evangelicals have had overlapping political priorities in the past. Their agendas are diverging in the era of President Trump and Pope Francis.
Christian Adversaries Come Together
Tensions between the two faith traditions is not a new phenomenon. As fierce adversaries, they cast doubt on each other’s legitimacy as heirs to the church of Jesus Christ. In recent times more and more churches are having interfaith services. It is more common in some areas than others, but has become widespread. That’s a good thing. We learn we believe more the same than different. Eventually, I believe we will be all be one!
In recent decades, the shared opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, and their common interest in parochial schools, brought Catholics and Evangelicals together. In 1994, a “Catholics & Evangelicals Together” manifesto between both faiths found they agreed on many issues. Progress will be interesting as time passes.
The Rev. Johnnie Moore said, “What has happened again and again, is we have found there’s this strange politician that generally has kept his promises to our community. This is an unusual characteristic for a politician.”
RONALD REAGAN and POPE JOHN PAUL II
Christianity in action for the entire world is the Holy Father’s partnership with President Ronald Reagan beginning in 1982. Together they planned the eventual toppling of the Soviet Union. Meetings were held in secret for years as they collaborated and planned. The Iron Curtain was finally torn down on November 9, 1989. The information is publicly available. Click on their names in the headline above to read all about their plans. This picture from 1982.
“Socialism considers the individual simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism.”
St. John Paul II The Great’s blunt warning about socialist governments that deny their citizens the chance to enjoy freedom and prosperity is more and more falling on deaf ears! That is stunning considering only a generation ago we watched the elation of millions when the Iron Curtain fell. I fear we are losing our faith and our history and causing our patriotism and morals to wane. If we forget, we are doomed to repeat it and that is a terrifying lesson. The Inattentive especially are in for an unimaginable awakening!
A Christian Nation
As a Nation, we must hold our faith in God, our country and our freedoms as our most sacred possessions. It is the foundation that made us the greatest Nation that was respected around the world. Whenever a country was in trouble, we were their neighbors. We were God’s people acting out the love of neighbor. As our society continually corrupts, our respect and love is on a downward spiral. It is going to take all good American Christians to bring it back in full force if we are to survive as one Nation under God. May God bless America once again!
For young people today, the situation is even more dire! An entire generation has been taught a lie, and more of them are believing it every year. Pray for them and our Nation that they learn and appreciate what true freedom means before they find out by living without it.
Response Magic