Bible study – Andrea Arthur Owan

5 Steps for Spiritual Health and Renewal

I’ll begin this blog post with the same question I asked last week: Does your spiritual life feel non-existent, bland, or in dire need of a spiritual revival?

Then I went on to discuss how living solely on daily devotionals can cause your spiritual life to degrade to blah.

But what else might be missing in your spiritual life? How can you improve your spiritual health and be renewed?

That’s what we’ll look at today.

Feeling Disenchanted with your Christian Life?

Many Christians find their initial fervor in the faith wanes after a few years, and their hearts feel a little dulled. If you find yourself facing that dilemma, rather than just consider it normal, or trying to brush it aside, or convincing yourself that your spiritual life is really okay, you should ask yourself the following questions:

Are you consistently listening to or watching good, solid Bible preaching? The kind that challenges and stretches you; reinforces your faith. Gets you excited, or even convicted.

Just as daily physical nourishment is required for good health, you need to feed yourself with the solid word of God for your spiritual well being. No offense to the power of positive thinking crowd, but that kind of preaching doesn’t delve deeply enough into the meat of the gospels. The whole Bible. Find a good Christian radio station to listen to, a television or streaming program with strong, biblical preaching to watch.

Do you have a circle of strong Christian friends you fellowship with regularly?

Iron sharpens iron, and this fact can’t be missed, or dismissed. Even Jesus had his twelve and then his inner three, although the joke is that He had Peter, James and John follow Him around because they were the most likely to get in trouble, and He had to keep an eye on them.

Belonging to a solid, Bible-teaching congregation is critical to spiritual health. Find one and become an active participant.

Find a Bible study group and be sensitive to others that you feel connected to. Seek them out. Join them for coffee or lunch. Get your hearts knit together. You don’t need an army of them. Two or three friends that stick together, lift each other up, make you feel safe and blessed are what you need.

I wouldn’t be able to survive without mine.

Have you been baptized?

Getting Holy water dribbled on you as a clueless baby is a lot different than taking the full plunge in front of witnesses as an adult.

You’re making a statement, a formal commitment to Jesus Christ. Proclaiming yourself to be a follower. It’s a serious matter and incredibly joyful and freeing event.

Your church doesn’t submerse? It doesn’t have to be the Jordan River. Ask a pastor to join you and some friends in a backyard pool.

Are you partaking of Communion?

Every time you gather with other believers to profess Christ’s body and blood given in sacrifice for Christians, you are remembering the Lord and what He has done for you, and everyone else gathered there. It is a community event. It means you accept Him as your groom as He proposes to you, His bride.

It is also a time of introspection, since no one should come to the Lord’s Table without a repentant heart.

And let me go out on a limb here and say that I believe it to be perfectly acceptable to pour yourself a small glass of grape juice, (or wine), and snag a small piece of bread or a cracker (as a side note: the bread Jesus used would have been unleavened, not some fluffy loaf we think of), open your Bible to the passages on the Last Supper or verses remembering that event, pray fervently, and partake of Communion on your own.

Or ask a friend to join you. My husband and I and another couple did just that a couple of weeks ago, as we sat in our living room watching a live stream worship service that included Communion. The pastor encouraged it. And it was a particular joy to celebrate it with dear friends in this continued COVID distancing.

I know. I’m going to get some flack on that one, especially from denominations that believe only a priest is allowed to bless the elements, and that they must be properly blessed before consumption. If you are horrified at what I’ve said, please leave a comment and tell me why you believe that to be true. And please back it up by Bible references, not extra-biblical writing.

Finally, do you have an active prayer life?

After reading and studying His word, this is the primary way to connect with the Savior.

There is nothing like reading Scripture, praying it, praying for yourself, others, the body of Christ, your leaders, your neighbors, your friends and your enemies. And seeing those prayers answered, whether yes or no. It’s life changing. Like walking with God in the cool of the day. Pouring your aching heart out to Him. Getting down and dirty and honest about your life.

It’s how life is won—on your knees.

It gives you unexpected revelations, opens your eyes to truth. Helps you recognize and utilize God’s life-giving power.

It helps you understand just how deeply and profoundly and unconditionally you are loved by the Creator and Savior.

Invitation—

If you’re not using any of these steps to strengthen your spiritual life, I invite—and encourage—you to start now. You can jump into all five of them with both feet, or tread more slowly, selecting one or two to incorporate and pursue. But do pursue them!

And if you have another discipline that helps you strengthen your spiritual life, please share it with us in the Comments box.

And if you don’t yet have a relationship with the Savior and would like to know how to have one, text me at 520-975-6109 and leave a brief message. I’ll be in touch. Or email me at:

andreaarthurowan@gmail.com

Easter is a marvelous time to commit your life to Christ!

NEXT WEEK: As we approach Easter, we’ll look at the importance of the Cross. Without it, there is no Christianity.

Until then, take the next steps to deepen and solidify your spiritual life.

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Devotionals: Do You Live on Spiritual Sound Bites?

Does your spiritual life feel non-existent, bland, or in dire need of a revival?

If you answered yes, one possible reason is that you’re trying to live and nurture your spirit only on daily devotionals—hyper-short, spiritual sound bites that are really nothing more than soul snacks.

It’s become more and more of a problem as we’ve taken the easy way out and become a society of sound bite snackers, a reflection of our current bent in society—microwave and fast food, snippets of entertainment, 15-minute news shows (after you account for the incessant, interrupting commercials), Facebook tidbits, Twitter feeds, and out-of-context, twisted quotes.

And through all of that, statistics show that we’re becoming more disengaged, lonely and frustrated with life.

And our souls are taking a beating for it.

What’s the Problem with Daily Devotionals?

Nothing.

And plenty.

Don’t get me wrong. I like devotionals and even get paid to write them. But they can’t sustain you spiritually, and they shouldn’t be a substitute for nurturing yourself with larger, more satisfying and sustaining meals of full Bible reading and in-depth Bible study.

Devotionals simply don’t—and can’t—provide the deep, sustaining nourishment your spirit desperately needs.

It’s like our physical bodies that need to be fed more complex meals to grow and flourish—proteins, carbs, high quality fats. And even if you do choose to snack your way through the day with complete proteins, good fats and complex carbs, you wouldn’t stay healthy very long if you limited your daily snacking to one, fifteen-minute snack and nothing more.

The same can be said of devotionals. While they may help you focus on a single topic and give your soul a little satisfying taste or sample of God’s word, it’s not long before your soul is famished and craving nourishment again.

In order to have a rich and deep spiritual life, like well-nourished and tended soil a healthy plant flourishes in, you need a better, more soul-nourishing sustenance than devotional snacking gives you.

Another problem with a devotional is that the Bible verse associated with it is too easily forgotten. And the verse is often not connected with the broader context of the passage it was plucked from.

You miss deeper meanings. You miss full understanding. You miss the life-giving, life-changing, life growing “meat.”

It’s also like joining a group of people who’ve been in deep conversation about a topic for a while and having to quickly get brought up to speed with the discussion by asking the others what you missed, in order to hang in with them as they chat on. You get the elevator speech, but you usually never feel as though you’ve fully connected to the discussion.

Devotionals + More Nourishing Spiritual Food—

If you want to get to know something or a subject well, you spend time reading about it, researching it. Mulling it over. Going to source material to study it from eyewitness accounts.

If you want to get to know someone well, you spend time with her; get to know her intimately over tea, telephone conversations, heart-sharing moments. You ask her questions about her life history, her likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams. You watch her as she interacts with others. You listen intently to what she says and how she says it.

Like our ancestors knew a hundred years ago, you sit on the front porch with a friend and enjoy an iced tea or checkers and chat. Cell phone off or put away.

Love Devotionals?

If you love using devotionals, keep using them. But consider them snacks, short pick-me-ups in your day, not the main course. They’re appetizers for a larger, more satisfying fare—the whole word and picture of God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Living off devotionals is spiritually risky. But there are rich, eternal rewards for taking time to immerse your mind, heart and soul in God’s word

Don’t miss out on the five-star meal!

Invitation—

Turn the devotional snack into a meal by opening your Bible and reading the entire chapter the verse was taken from. Learn the context, the before and after. The bigger picture and deeper meaning.

It’s good soul food.

Remember: Living on devotional snacks leaves your soul anemic and sick. If you want to have a satisfied soul and healthy spiritual life, dig in to the whole word of God, every day.

NEXT WEEK: More encouragement on how to have a richer spiritual life than daily devotionals can give.

Until then, make time in your schedule for enjoying the spiritual appetizers AND the main course!

Blessings,

Andrea

“Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, jut as your soul prospers.”


Andrea Arthur Owan, M.S., A.T., R., is a health and fitness pro, speaker, award-winning inspirational writer, memoirist, and senior-ordained chaplain (IFOC). She helps people thrive physically, emotionally and spiritually and recover from grief, loss and trauma.

Will Your Resurrection be more Spiritual or Physical?

What does your future resurrection mean to you? Do you look forward to it with longing and joy, or questions, fears, and misunderstandings?

Do you believe your spirit will go on eternally but your decrepit, physical body will remain eternally entombed someplace in the Earth?

Today we’re going to explore some Scripture that may impart new meaning, new joy, and new purpose to you for your resurrection, and for your present life on Earth.

Getting it straight—

Throughout the pages of Scripture—Old Testament and New—you can read a promise of, and belief in a future resurrection—spiritual andphysical. There is both a physicality and soul/spiritual component. The physicality of a resurrection actually defines and solidifies the definition of resurrection.

Word pictures of resurrection—

Scripture gives us word pictures of people “coming forth” out of their tombs after hearing God’s voice calling them to come forth, like Jesus called out to Lazarus when He raised that dead man from the grave.

This resurrection will be grand and unspeakable, an awesome display of God’s creative and re-creative and restorative powers. It will be a day unlike any other since Jesus’ Resurrection.

There are Old Testament resurrection passages echoed in the New Testament.

Even Job believed in a bodily resurrection.

Supporting Scripture—

Meditate on the following verses to expand, solidify and encourage your resurrection view and hope.

“But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Jesus speaking in Matthew 22:31-32).

“And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14).

“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed” (First Corinthians 15:51-52).

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first” (First Thessalonians 4:16).

“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:20-21).

“Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39).

“Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are I the graves will hear His voice and com forth—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5:28-29).

“And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many” (Matthew 27:51 – 53).

“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, Some to everlasting life, Some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2)

“For I know that my Redeemer lives,

And He shall stand at last on the earth;

And after my skin is destroyed, this I

know,

That in my flesh I shall see God,

Whom I shall see for myself,

And my eyes shall behold, and not

another,

How my heart yearns within me!” (Job 19:25-27).

May your heart yearn within you, dear reader and child of God, for the bodily resurrection you will enjoy, the eternal spirit that already resides within you, and the promise of seeing our precious Savior—in our renewed, restored, and revitalized bodies—face-to-face!

Until NEXT WEEK (when we’ll explore more about the importance of our bodies), may you revel in these truths and meditate on them in supreme joy!

For more reading on this subject see this article on the “desiring God” website.

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Hand and Sea photo by Ian Espinoza

Bible photo by Colin Carey

Looking for (and Finding) Streams in Your Desert

Water is a commodity here in the Southwestern desert. We highly prize it and nearly collapse into giddy convulsions when the heavens unleash it onto the desert floor during our summer monsoon. So whenever you happen upon it here, it’s like finding a pearl of great price. You lap it up emotionally and spiritually, and always physically, since dehydration looms as a potential health hazard for desert-dwellers.

And doesn’t that sound like an analogy of life?

Have you ever been in a desert time of your life?

We all traverse times of plodding through what feels like an emotional and spiritual desert. We live in “a funk” as a friend of mine calls it. Many of us experience deserts containing some scraps of life, while others can’t seem to locate a shred of nourishment anywhere. We stumble through life, pursuing mirages and coming up dry. We’re in a hurry to get through it—believing it has nothing valuable to teach us—and look in all the wrong places for life nourishing water.

Or we wait and wait and wait for the water to come to us.

Knowing God’s promises about the desert

Sometimes what we need to do is trust, listen, and look for it, recalling what God proclaimed to the prophet Isaiah:

“Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing. Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, Rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19, Amplified Bible).

First, God calls us to listen.
Then he tells us he’s about to do a new thing and describes what it will be.
He cautions us to be aware of it, looking for it.
He tells us he’ll provide a road in the wilderness;
and make rivers to flow in the desert.

I thought a lot about that passage, the pricelessness and spirit-infusing joy of finding water in the desert this last weekend after hiking in Sabino Canyon, a recreational area near our home described as “a desert oasis.”

The engineer and I could have parked ourselves at the bottom of the canyon and waited for the water to flow to us. But that would have been an exercise in futility because rain is rare here this time of year, and that day the early rising sun quickly burned away the threadbare cloud blanket and heated up the canyon walls.

Instead, the engineer and I went in search of the water. Rather than attempt to carve out our own road, we took the path provided. We actually pulled out a map to follow. We hiked and ascended and eventually arrived at the prize—melted mountain snow water cascading down chiseled and glossed granite cliffs into clear pools. Pools large enough to toss your body into and paddle around in. Seven waterfalls and trickles stacked at the end of a boxed desert canyon. A source of life and refreshment to wildlife, plants, and people.

After claiming a spot at the edge of one of the pools, a pool that had already been claimed by a pair of male Mallard ducks—who thought they’d scored big when we fished around in our fanny packs and extracted two energy bars for a snack they hoped we’d share with them—I unlaced and dragged off my Keen hiking boots and wooly socks and slid my swollen feet and throbbing left toe into the crystal clear, COLD water.

My feet were grateful for that water, my eyes and brain were grateful for that water, and my soul screamed internal heaven-sent hallelujahs for it. I could have sat there for hours, intermittently soaking my feet, watching the ducks beg, paddle around lazily and leave rippling wakes behind them. I could have watched the cloud wisps putter across the powder blue sky; the rock faces change shape in the pool reflections; the saguaro cactus cast short, shorter and then lengthening shadows across the cliffs they miraculously find enough nourishment to grow in; the candy apple red cardinals fly up-down zigzag patterns from one shade-providing mesquite tree to another.

Can you avoid a desert time?

But the frustrating reality was that I couldn’t stay up there indefinitely in that seven-pool nirvana. I had to walk back down the canyon away from it. And that’s the way life functions for most of us too.

We can’t avoid it. For whatever reason, life or God himself orchestrates a desert time in our lives. Moses fled to the desert after he murdered a man and hid there for forty years before God called him back to Egypt to free his people. Bible teacher Dr. J. Vernon, McGee quips that Moses was getting his Backside-of-the-Desert degree. While that always gets a chuckle, there’s a heap of truth to it.

Jesus went into the wilderness for forty days. We don’t know what he experienced every day on his journey, but we do know Satan harassed and tempted him when he seemed to be at his weakest.

Without trying to sound crass, I’d say the experiences toughened both of them up for what lie ahead.

Elijah the prophet orchestrated his own trip to the desert when—terrified—he ran for his life from the evil Queen Jezebel and ended up being ministered to by God. Elijah managed to find a hideout near a flowing stream, his personal stream in his desert. Through that experience, I’m guessing he learned a lot more about God’s mercy and compassion.

Jesus, Moses and Elijah all learned a lot during their desert time—about God and about themselves. We learn about them and God through our reading of these events.

You can learn a lot during your desert time, even while searching and waiting for the water God promises to give you.

How are you handling your desert time?

Usually we need to lean into our desert time, without trying to fight it or run from it. But then we need to make sure that we don’t get mired in it. Stuck in our parched wilderness.

Some questions I invite you to ask yourself to make your, or someone else’s desert time productive. The counsel of a friend (you) could be just what they need right now, a life-replenishing river in their desert.

Are you experiencing a desert time right now in your life, and how are you handling it? Could you be encouraging and supporting someone you know who is experiencing one?

Are you trusting wholeheartedly in God’s promise to provide you a “road” out, a river of spiritual life at the end of your desert journey?

Are you asking God what he’s trying to teach you during this desert time, so you don’t have to stay there any longer than necessary?

Are you asking him to reveal the road out?

And are you actively searching for the life-giving water?

Care to Share?

I’d love to hear how you handle your desert times. If you’d like to share, just head over to the Blog page to leave a comment you can share with others. W want to help each other successfully traverse our desert times.

I pray you spend your time rejoicing in God’s promise of providing a road out, a road leading to a temporal and spiritual stream in your desert, and the heaven-bound road you’ll traverse when your time on Earth is done!

Until Monday!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Welcome to Meditation Mondays! Prepping for Spiritual Success

Welcome to Andrea’s Meditation Monday blog posts! I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to have you join me for this journey.

Every Monday we’ll explore the deep questions of life and spirituality. Not religion, per se, although I may do some history and basic theology overviews so you can see how similar many of the religions are, and how different.

But let’s get our feet wet today in preparation of stepping into the river of life next Monday!

Devotions or Digging Deeper?

You may have a daily devotion book you use. That’s wonderful if you do. It’s a way for you to learn how others are doing on their journey with God, how their experiences relate to yours, and how their experiences speak to your heart. You will likely find peace and encouragement through your daily devotions. So I want to assure you that we’re not going to set aside the devotion, if you like to use one.

What I’m inviting you to do, though, is to simplify. And go deeper.

What do I meant by that?

Maybe you—like I—sometimes find daily devotions a bit tedious, or that they sometimes only skim the surface. That’s often because a devotion piece is supposed to be short and concise, without time to dive into the deep end of the passage or focus. They just give you a sample or hors d-oeuvres-sized taste. And maybe you feel as though you’ve become a slave to “doing them,” or “getting them done.” I hear people ask, “Did you do your devotion today?” as though it was a chore, and they’re you’re devotion police.

Or maybe you miss one or two, berate yourself for that neglect, and then feel as though you’ve failed at your personal spiritual-self-improvement-program. You might promise yourself you’ll go back to those missed devotions, and dutifully mark the pages to read them. But soon your go-back-to devotions pile up. If you’re the super achiever type, or coerced by guilt, you do read them—all in one sitting—and, while you’re relieved you could now get your gold star (from God, or the devotion police—which may be you) for accomplishing that feat, you don’t get any spiritually productive (soul changing) kernels out of that marathon read-fest.

Or maybe you’re like me. I sometimes like to sit down every day to a familiar devotion book. But more often, I go in waves. Sometimes the devotion tide and interest is out; and sometimes it’s in and high. But most of the time I’d rather have an idea or thought a week to really chew on.

That’s what I mean by simplicity.

And then you can take that thought or idea to a deeper level, with more introspective, exhaustive questions.

That’s what we’ll do together on Meditation Mondays. Really dig up and till the soils of our hearts and souls. Get out some soul fertilizer and enrich the spiritual soil.

4 Steps to Prepare for Success

But first we need to prepare. Because anything worth doing well requires good preparation!

For next Monday there are some things you’ll want to do to give your meditation the best chance of success.

First, locate your Bible. Any version will do. Use whatever you’re comfortable with. If you’re using an online Bible, make sure you can bookmark the pages or highlight passages.

Second, get a journal you can use a pen or pencil to write in. While you may not be the journaling type, I can’t encourage you enough to give this journaling thing a shot. The actual process of writing (not typing) helps you slow down, focus and remember your thoughts and impressions. Even doodling or drawing pictures will engage the brain, rev it up, promote thought and creativity, and trigger the development of new neuron connections. Your brain’s superhighway will enlarge!

And it doesn’t have to be a fancy journal. One of those lined paper, spiral type notebooks you bought for a high school or college class will do.

Then, decide on a day and time you can commit to reading the post and writing in your journal. Pick a time that’s best for you, one you’re most likely to stay with. I recommend at least reading the post on Monday or Tuesday so you have all week to think about and meditate on it. But you may select an entirely different day to make journal notes. If you’re in your home or a building, make yourself a “Do Not Disturb” or “Occupied” sign to hang on the door of the room you’ll be sitting in. Be intentional. (I recommend a quiet place inside, or outside, for this. Not some hip coffee cafe where people and activities (and loud, fingers-raking-a-blackboard espresso machine noise) can overwhelm the brain and senses.

Finally, I invite you to find the following verse in your Bible, read it, commit it to memory, and use it to pray for yourself frequently throughout the week. Call to the Creator of the universe, to do what He promises to do. Doing that will prepare your heart and mind for whatever it is God wants to teach you. He has a word to speak specifically to you, a truth He wants to reveal. For your benefit and His glory!

“Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and might things, which you do not know” Jeremiah 33:3. (NKJV)

If you like The Message, Eugene Peterson’s rendering of this verse is great!

“Call to me and I will answer you. I’ll tell you marvelous and wondrous things that you could never figure out on your own.”

I cannot begin to tell you what truths were revealed to me once I started using this verse as a focus. God is faithful, and He will faithfully answer your prayer for revelation if you call to him with all your heart.

Expect great things from our gracious and generous God!

Looking forward to seeing you back next Monday, when we’ll start exploring several of the most important questions in life!

AND I hope you’ll also join me this Wednesday, for our first Workout Wednesdays!

Blessings,

Andrea

May you prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 2).

Photo Courtesy of Christopher P Owan