How Does Your Spiritual Life Grow? (Part 2)
by Dan Appel
by Dan M. Appel, April 30, 2014
Paul in Ephesians urges us to grow up into Christ, something any of us committed to following Jesus would like to do. Unfortunately, we rarely discuss how this is to happen. Previously, we looked at the first four stages of spiritual maturation. Now we look at the final two stages—spiritual maturity as God designed all of us to experience it.
The Second Major Transition – Spiritual Rubicon – The Dividing Line Leading to New Life in the Spirit
Many, if not most, people who call themselves followers of Jesus never grow beyond the fourth level of spiritual maturity in their walk with God. Those who do almost always experience a profound paradigm-shattering crisis, what some have called a “dark night of the soul.” In such a time, everything they have believed, their very relationship with God and what it means and entails is seriously questioned and their beliefs are re-examined and held up to scrutiny and redefined and expressed and personalized. It is a time where it seems like their whole spiritual house is made of crumbs rather than concrete, where their relationship with the group that has nurtured and helped them grow is re-evaluated and redefined. It is often a time of spiritual depression, a journey into a valley of shadow and death from which they fear they will never emerge. It is a place where the underpinnings of everything they have built their spiritual house on are examined to see if it is constructed on rock or sand. If a person is willing to allow God to grow him or her beyond the first four stages of spiritual development, it can open into a place of joy and peace and closeness with God, which transcends anything he or she has ever imagined or experienced.
Stage Five
In Stage Five, there is a tectonic shift in what motivates an individual follower of Jesus. Morality in Stage Five is determined by how an attitude or action impacts one's relationship—enhances or detracts from it—with God or one's fellow-man. It is determined on a totally different basis than rules, roles, creeds or the expectations of religious authorities or the group. The focus now shifts to one of how one's attitudes and actions impact relationships with God and others.
While at first glance this stage may appear relativistic and based on situational ethics, it is really the beginning of the stages that characterized the lives all of the spiritual “greats” in the history of this world. Suddenly, a greater law becomes the governing principle of a person’s life—the law of loving God supremely and one’s neighbor as one’s self. Now the life of a follower of Jesus becomes one's desire because the law is written on one's heart.
When deciding which course of action to take, Stage Five followers of Jesus begin to base their lives on the question, How will this enhance or detract from my relationship with God or my neighbor? Under that criterion, something that might be legally and theologically all right could be absolutely wrong under certain circumstances. For example, Paul said that there were things that were perfectly allowable under the Torah but which, because of their impact on his weaker brothers, he chose not to do.
Often the person ends up doing or not doing many of the same things she would at another stage of her spiritual development but for totally different reasons. Instead of living her life by a list of forensic do’s and don’ts on a guilt/righteousness continuum, now things such as whether an action or attitude will bring shame and reproach or honor and praise to God or her fellow man become important. Whether something will defile or adulterate her relationship with God or another person becomes the motivating principle. Whether an action or an attitude will cause her or those around her to fear God or empower them to live rich, full, satisfying, love-filled lives in him and with each other become of greatest importance.
Stage Six
In Stage Six, the important issue for the follower of Jesus is whether or not something brings pleasure to God and grace to others. It is spiritual altruism at its best.
Jesus said that the two great commandments were to love God supremely and to love our neighbor as ourselves. In this stage, the focus of a person’s life becomes spending time with God—being conscience of God's presence throughout the day, listening for his voice guiding him. A person begins to see those around him through the eyes of Jesus; his heart starts rejoicing with what brings Jesus joy and becomes broken by what breaks Jesus's heart. In the words of the nineteenth-century author, E.G. White, heaven for the person at this stage begins now as he lives a life of connection with God all day long.
The church in Stage Six exists to support, encourage, and provide loving accountability in the relationships in our lives, not as the means of salvation or even the major source of information about what is right or wrong. It is the place of fellowship with those who are also on their walk toward an increasingly deeper relationship with God. It is the place where we go to be encouraged and challenged to a life of love. It is the place where brothers and sisters hold up the mirror of God’s word so they can clearly see how to love and where they may not be loving. It is the place where they come together to accomplish loving deeds for God in concert with others who share their passion for him. It is a place where they can gather and learn together about him and his plan for humanity. And it is the place where they go to have their spiritual fires rekindled, their flagging spirits raised, and where they join with others of like passion for God in worshiping him.
While the group is important in that they are a part of the family of God, in Stage Six the group is not the determining factor for morality. Nor is punishment or reward. Rather, it is all about bringing pleasure and glory and honor to someone we love—human or divine. That is what the angels and unfallen beings live to do; it is their greatest joy. And it is what will consume us for an eternity. It is the highest stage of spiritual growth!
Reaching Higher Ground
The words of an old gospel song go, “Lord, lift me up and I shall stand By faith on heaven’s tableland; A higher plane than I have found; Lord, plant my feet on higher ground.”
God’s desire and purpose for each of us is to lead us beyond the certainty of a rules- and creeds-based religion to the adventure of a relationship based following on Jesus every day. It is a walk that, while rooted in the past stages, focuses forward and constantly strives to move beyond the letter of obedience to the life of a new heart guided and nurtured by the Holy Spirit, as we revel in God’s presence and meditate day and night on the meaning of his Word.
How can we make this journey of faith from stage to stage of spiritual maturity?
We have to be willing to make the journey. Tom Peters, the business guru, declared that the only business which will thrive in the coming chaotic years is the one that learns to thrive on chaos!
We all naturally shy away from chaos, especially from spiritual chaos. But the life of the Spirit is intrinsically chaotic. It is following the guidance of the one Jesus likened to the wind that blew in unexpected places and directions. Following Jesus, one cannot relax in the comfort of a settled existence; instead one constantly experiences the adventure of new life and new vistas and new experiences.
If we are to grow to become all that God wishes and desires for us, our preconceptions have to be fractured until we emerge from the chrysalis of our traditions and our settled patterns of living into the glorious light of his constant ongoing presence in all areas of our lives.
We can’t be afraid of the journey. The one who promises to never leave us or forsake us promises to be with us as we journey into increasingly intimate stages of our spiritual growth. Even when we cannot see the path or where it leads, we know that he is our guide. Even when a fog of uncertainty clouds the future, we can be certain that he holds the future. Even when the obstacles seem unconquerable, we know that the one who created the universe has committed himself and all of his resources to solving them.
The adventure of faith means trusting God so much that wherever he leads, by whatever path he chooses, at whatever pace and time, we would not want to be anywhere else with anybody else.
We have to be grounded in the earlier stages of growth. Children do not become adults at birth. Healthy, balanced adults are such because they have successfully navigated each stage of human development. The term makes it plain! It is development—moving through stages to other places. The human body is not ready for adult activities at birth. The human brain is not ready for abstract thought in early childhood. Human emotions are not ready for romance at puberty. A person is not ready for algebra unless he or she has mastered basic math. Each stage of a person’s development and education is built on successfully making it through those stages which precede it.
In the same way, a person’s spiritual development is grown on the stages that precede it.
We cannot be afraid of the naysayers. It is rare to find a child who understands, or even begins to comprehend, the thinking of those in later stages of their growth. In the same way, it is a rare person indeed who is comfortable with the lives of those in later stages of their spiritual journey. Just as a child will often exhibit insecurity with temper tantrums or manipulation in order to control the parents, so people in the initial stages of spiritual maturation will react, often violently, against what they see as the liberality of those in the later stages of their spiritual journey.
Jesus was rarely understood or appreciated by the orthodox spiritual leaders and people of his day. He went in new directions. He made friends with those with whom the traditional church wanted nothing to do. He went places where good followers of God weren’t supposed to go. He said things that offended and caused negative reaction. He worshiped in ways that few understood. All in the service of God.
It is probable that his modern day followers will do the same. And, like Jesus, we have to be willing to pay the price of leaving behind spiritual father and mother and brother and sister and forsaking all, to follow Jesus.
We must be committed to growth. It is so easy, so sinfully natural, to want to settle down at every comfortable place in our spiritual journey. Growth is very often painful and unsettling, but it is absolutely necessary for life. Whatever is not growing is dying, even if it imagines that it is still living. Spiritual growth means intentionally exposing oneself to new ideas and experiences, and then evaluating them by God’s Word. It means allowing the Spirit to replace the dry, unstretchable skin of one's preconceptions and traditions with a new spiritual skin that is flexible and pliable and usable by God.
We must grow! It is much easier to live a life based on rules and commands than it is to listen for the still, quiet voice of God’s Spirit as we move through our daily lives. It is much more comfortable to have a checklist posted on the wall of our minds than it is to feel for the gentle wind of the Spirit on our hearts.
Like petulant children, we do not want to grow, to give up our childish things and ways of thinking and interacting with God and our fellow man, but we must if we are to be all that we and God want us to be.
The United States Army has a recruiting slogan: “Be all that you can be!" God couldn’t have said it better himself!
Dan,
thank you for this well-thought out and inspired piece on spiritual growth. I have copied it and will treasure it for devotional reading.
I think I am still a petulant child too much of the time!
I would be interested in communicating with you on spirituality under differing circumstances.
Dan,
Several years ago I would have read your blog and it would have met a responsive chord of passion, amen, and fire from me.
Today, I read this blog, and the AT News report on the Adventist Pastor joins the Pope.. (Where I think you feature), and it leaves me deeply troubled.
Where I would have read the blog with passion and "amens", now, it leaves me in awe that we can almost glorify a state of mind that I find almost shocking.
I imagine a vast number of folks who have responded to that youtube vid with hostility would judge themselves to be inside your stages 5 & 6. We may judge them otherwise, but I can almost hear them saying they are reaching for higher ground, not afraid of the naysayers, not afraid of the journey and so forth. Doing and saying for God….
I've been attacked in such ways before, and it hurts. A lot. And you have my deepest respect and concern for what you are facing.
Yet, it seems to me your blog is setting us up for more of the same because I wonder that it is possible that entering stage five and six can only happen when one has quieted the voice of reason and logic in their mind, and has given themselves fully over to self delusion? A delusion, which is empowerd by a sense of being and doing for God. And, that power can become so evil and destructive when it confronts what it has subjectively decided is against its God.
I know I will not be appreciated for speaking like this, but it deeply worries me. I notice on the other thread Dr Taylor has raised the question re the "lunatic fringe" or something like that. There seems to be a fine line between passion for God, these stages, and a lunatic fringe. On fire but deluded.
I seriously wonder, what safeguards and checks can you offer that these tools you give in your blog are not just fuel on such fires? Can one even enter such stages and remain rational and in touch with the checks and balances of a balanced human ethic? I don't know…
How would a passionate, gun weilding muslim, filled with the passion and blind faith of stages 5 or 6 be differentiated from the passionate Bible weilding SDA's who slam a Pastor over hosting a Priest? Different, yes, but too much in common.. Are we even safe suggesting people should enter these stages?
Again, I will not be welcome with these thoughts, but that report and this blog do raise issues, and I think we need to be challenged to examine a larger context at times….
I read the blog twice, and I am still trying to figure out what cb25 is talking about.
What does he mean by a fine line between passion for God, these stages and a fringe? Are you talking about the expression of emotion vs. reason? Are we describing different mindsets? Isn't love for God and each other a testing point? Doesn't the fruits of the Spirit tell what sort of passion we are talking about? Is all passion over-reacting to you?
From my perspective these various stages can and do overlap, depending on circumstances, feelings, health, and spiritual practices.
I wanted to spend a few days thinking about your concerns before I answered.
A couple of initial thoughts:
I wrote what I did in a hurry yesterday and it shows as it is pretty disjointed.
I do think that there is a principle which underlies this whole process of spiritual maturation through the various stages: Not committing adultary does not mean that I love. Not committing adultary does not create or evidence love. At the early four stages of growth a person is under the impression that what we do or don't do either means that we love God or somehow creates a relationship with him. As we continue to grow, though, we discover that just as a person who is truly in love will not adulterate his/her marriage, a person who loves God will do or not do certain things – because they love. It is the motivation that changes not many of the actions. As I have tried to plumb the concerns expressed by several it appears to me that they took the discussion in a totally different direction than the original article – which is concerned with the transformation of what motivates us.
As I tried unsuccessfully to state above, we want a manual – a list of do's and don'ts so that we can live our lives "by the book" when God wants a relationship with us. That is why Jesus constantly tried to move the Jews away from the Torah to the "Royal Law" of loving God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. They put him on a cross for his efforts. It is why Paul, who intentionally chose to model his life and ministry after that of Jesus, constantly worked to move the Gentile Christians away from a rule based worship and service to a relationship based life and he was hounded by the Judaisers until his death for it.
Rules and regulations based living may bring us satisfaction, because we can tick off the things we do like the Rich Young Ruler and can, subtely take some credit to ourselves for our will-power, but relationship based living by his followers brings Jesus satisfaction.
That is the ultimate life!
Moose,
Thanks for your added observations.
Unfortunately, I don't think I did take your disucssion in a totally different way. The more you have described that the core is concerned with the transformation of what motivates us, the more fearfull of your philosophy I become for I see no qualitative difference between that and what motivates many religious radicals and lunatic fringes.
It is one thing saying God took a risk in giving such relational/love freedom and choice, but that will not help us in the real world.
The real world is one where religious militancy is growing. Just consider the spread of sharia law. It seems to me a futile argument to say such people are not motivated by love and relationship, at least in their own eyes. (There's also plenty of "crazy" Adventists, as you have sadly found out. The place where I see them differently is that I don't think it is OK.)
If I or you promote a life free from the checks and balances of reality and ethics anchored firmly in the wellbeing of humanity what is left to confront such lunatics?
Nothing, because they are in levels 5/6 where they are doing for God (as they see it or their Word says it) and don't fear the naysayers.
Like I said earlier, if someone reaches these stages and becomes a wonderfull loving person, we ask no questions and praise God, but what if the very same relational love, as seen through their paradigm is destructive?
This world should begin to fear people who are motivated by God and move outside the place where doubt about their beliefs and denial of reason free them from the restraints of human ethics. Not all the "God ethics" out there are good and letting people loose in stages 5 and 6 is dangerous I fear.
There must be checks and balances, and I'm just asking what you think they are, if they are even possible. Seems to me reason and reality are actually contradictory to those stages.
News just in link below.
Motivated by love for their God and an intense relatioship with him and Mohammed?
Stages 5/6 ? It is time we woke up and began to have checks and balances to any freewheeling of faith.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-08/boko-haram-attack-in-nigerian-attack-kills-hundreds2c-witnesse/5437766
Thank you Brother Appel. i wholly agree with your six stages of the totally committed Christian. Some reach Stage Six by acquiring two or more of the Stages similtaneously. i submit you are in the top Stage, of which you wouldn't have known without the Holy Spirit who lives with you, leading you to this understanding. We need have no fear of anything. They may kill the body, they cannot kill the Spirit of God, nor man's "soul". What restrains us from uniting with Christian sinners, and sinners of other persausions? Nothing can seperate us from God's TRUTH, His love, His grace. Jesus said to "go out, and bring them into His
house, with thankgiving and praise. Make a joyful NOISE, unto the Lord! AMEN.
Chris, you know i love you, and care about you, and all others who have lost their first love, Jesus Christ. i value your friendship highly, and honor your decision of choice. You are a true lover of humanity, and all creatures on Earth. You have what i believe is the fruit of the Spirit, whether you acknowledge it or not. i believethose in Stages 5 & 6 do not display, or have any hostility toward others. Chris, Christ taught that His gospel message of love, tolerance, and grace to man would bring down harrassment, torture, and death to His followers, just as it did in His time here; Paul, Peter, and countless others,have suffered torture and death for their faith. Currently in Syria, many Christians are being beheaded and hung on trees, because they will not deny the Lord Jesus Christ. According to yesterdays News, two 16 year old boys, Christians, were beheaded beacuse they would not renounce their Faith in Jesus Christ. All non Islamics are infidels, lower than mongrel dogs, in the eyes of the Wahhabi and Shariah sects of Islam. Perhaps you believe these young lives were forfeited because they lost all reasoning and logic?
i can't agree they were delusional, i submit to you, this is not self-delusion. Such faith is worth the price to uphold the love of God. The executioners are the self delusioned ones. To have such faith, at such a tender age, is the essence of a "soul" having the saving grace and love of Jesus Christ, indelibly written in the heart. PRAISE GOD FOR SUCH FAITH. Chris, i say those who have the Holy Spirit, on board, will never deny their Saviour. Will never condemn their fellow man. Will hold up Jesus, as did Moses, holding up the Golden Serpent, in anticipation of deliverance for all that are believers, past, present, future. Those who rant and rave. Those who are intolerant. Those who are angry and hostile. Those who kill. Are not of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christianity has been used as a shield for evil doers, all thru the past 2000 years. They are usurpers, seeking support by carrying the Banner Of Christ, thereby giving Christianity a bad reputation. "Come unto me, all ye (everyone) who are weak and heavy laden , and i will give you my peace", saith the Lord Jesus Christ. AMEN.
Ella and Earl,
I'll try to add a couple of points to make sense of what I said for you.
Ella, no, I don't think love for God and each other is a testing point, nor that the fruits of the Spirit tell what sort of passion we are talking about. Earl has described very well the suffering and death of Christians in Egypt. The people doing this killing love God. They are passionate. Even worse, they would tell you that they love their fellow man – even the Christians they are killing. Their love for them is expressed in carrying out Allah's judgments for Him!
Now, I know that their belief is rubbish, but they believe it. These are people who could well self-describe as in stages 5 & 6.
I asked the question, what is the difference between this sort of person and the type sending death threats over the Catholic in an SDA Church? Well, there are lots of differences, but the power of God driven passion in the person is not one of them. Put those SDA's who express things with such hostility in the shoes of those Egyptian Muslims and guess what? They will be killing people. Not a shadow of doubt. Human nature has not changed since the dark days of the past. Just the context.
What Dan has written is beautiful in many ways, and in the right place would only produce kinder, more passionately loving God filled people, but I do think it is equally fuel on the fires of delusion and religious arrogance too. If they are passionate for the "right" things we will not question it. If they are passionate for the "wrong" things, as Earl has described in Egpyt's killers, or the people writing death threats to Dan, we do question it.
In fact we do what Earl has done. We stand in judgment and say they are evil doers. Well, not in their eyes they are not. They are passionate for God!
I actually suspect that dark nights of the soul are often a person's final struggle to cling to reality. If they fail to do so all that follows is self delusion. If they (and we) are lucky they become the kind of perosn Dan is calling for. If we are not lucky they are the ones doing the killing in Egpyt, or on a small scale exhibiting the same spirit and sending hate mail. A lunatic fringe, or passionate for God?
I recently read the stories of several Christians who had become Muslims. Most had done so via a dark night of the soul. All became passionate for "God". All would put themselves in stage 6.
That is pretty much what I mean by fine line.
Terminology is important–we can define "passion" in different ways. Without a descriptive adjective, it could mean any type of extreme emotion or zeal. In a world of good and evil, one needs to differentiate between the kinds of passion.
When you say radical Muslims kill for Allah, I don't think it is their love for their god but a learned strong belief based on hatred for those who think differently; it's their desire for reward and meaning, and a number of other deceptions they have been brainwashed to believe in. I don't think they know the meaning of love as represented by Jesus. I would go so far as to say they are demonic, and to a lesser degree the same is true of any Christian or SDA with the same kind of thought patterns.
As for the "dark night of the soul" you may or may not know this is a term used by a Christian saint who wrote on spirituality. As I read him, he was referring to the periods we all face in life in which we wrestle with doubt. It may or may not be related to a life crisis. Such a period may bring about a wrong or right choice influencing the rest of their lives.
There is always the possibility one can be so afraid of emotion in the spiritual realm, they run away from it. For example, there are those who fear simple meditation can turn one into a "new ager." Then there are those who make decisions by their feelings/emotions at the moment and call it religion. Neither of these extremes is reasonable or mature. My opinion is that the line is not that fine with Jesus as our example and guide.
Chris, Dan is addressing the six stages of growing up into Christ Jesus and having the Holy Spirit as our constant consulting person of the Godhead, influencing our behaviour. He is not speaking to the Islamic religion, which follows another, than Jesus Christ; One who advocates hate, terror, and death to unbelievers. There is no comparison whatever to the LOVE of our GOD, of LOVE THY NEIGHBOR, of tolerance. A person in stage six, has no dark nights of dispair, because of a loss of faith, or of thinking God has forsaken us and has changed His New Covenant.
Our God is Loving, and eternal. The comparisons of Christianity to all other religions, has no relevence to the ethics and morality of Jesus Christ.
Earl,
Someone in stage 6 is someone beyond the voice of reason if, obvious only if, perchance that reason conflicts with what they believe their God requests. (Just follow discussions on AT for a day and see how impervious to reason some die-hards here are – one can point out that X is in fact X and they will continue to tell you it is Z!!)
In principle there is no difference between religious believers of one persuasion or another. Your Jesus is another's Mohammed and vice versa. There is absolutely a comparison imho.
Fringe, (I hope they are) fundamentalist mAdventists, and fringe (I suspect they are not) radical Muslims will all tell you they follow their God wheresoever He leads.
To borrow from another thead: Until we can answer Dr Taylor's question of how indeed one determines that SDA's have truth/Truth, how on earth can we run the risk of promoting departure from human reason to follow some God someplace? We have not even settled the issue of which God, so how can we risk setting people loose in stage 6 in ANY religion? What, just because Moose thinks his IS the right one? That's what they all say – even those wearing an explosive vest!
Chris, i have yet to find a religion which has the basis of Love for "your God, and undiluted love for all humanity", even should they be enemies, which rises to the ultimate standard of live and let live, as expressed by Christianity . Let each choose, or not choose to participate. i do not choose "reason" over Love. Love is absolute. Reason is just that, subjective. O the joy and peace and confidence of life and love, true love, shared with a parent, a mate, a friend, a pet. This is a desirable choice for a person to be a part of, to know that we are loved with an everlasting love. The power to live each moment in the bosom of love. To face death, with the complete assurance of the love of your God. O the joy of the reality of whatever it be, that "He restores our souls". Chris, what alternative tops this??
Quote:
"Praise be to Allah who blessed us with the guidance of His prophets and messengers. Praise be to Allah whose Mercy encompasses everything. Praise be to Allah who knows our needs and answers our calls and brings peace to our hearts.
Praise be to Allah who breathed into us of His Spirit and placed the light of His guidance in our inmost being. Whomever Allah guides, no one can misguide, and whomever Allah misguides, no one can guide. We put our trust in Allah and seek His forgiveness, aid, and support.
A man once came to the Prophet (puh) and asked him about the hereafter. The Prophet asked him, “And what have you prepared for that time?” The man replied, “Nothing, except that I love Allah and I love you.” The Prophet (puh) answered him, “You are with the ones you love.”
Dear brothers and sisters, the guidance of Islam is the guidance of love. The innate, natural and ancient religion that is Islam is the religion of love. The Prophet (puh) came to guide us to love and to make clear the love that is at the core of all religion. Our purpose as human beings is to consciously manifest Allah’s love in our lives. This is the most significant meaning of Khilafa and Ibada that can bring purpose to us and transform our lives. " http://sufism.org/articles/love-in-islam-2
puh means "peace unto him".
Stage 6 eat take note.
Earl,
In case you missed it, you asked what topped the power of love? All depends who you ask does it not?
btw Earl,
You suggest reason is subjective and love is absolute. Bro, are you not calling X Z? Reason has a chance of being objective. Love is the most likely to be subjective. Are you sure you're not smoking somethin..? 🙂
Chis, i don't smoke, don't shoot up, don't sniff. You quote the preamble of a verydeceitful and troubled author, who used people as dung under his shoes. Who chopped off hands, feet, heads, of those who thought differently than himself. Quote the whole story.
I just watched a video about Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a Hamas leader, who recently converted to Christianity. He tells of how he heard the message "love your enemies" which touched him greatly because he had never heard this message. Why? Because Christiaity is the only religion that teaches this. Muslims certainly don't. Whether it's followers practice this is another matter, but certainly some do.