Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 291 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Principles of Spiritual Growth – The Cross

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 291 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 11^th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Self-Denial. Today we will focus on one of the most important trails which is the Trail of The Cross.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Paula had a long, but pleasant trip to Fort Myers on Tuesday to visit Aunt Pauline. Her aunt is very weak but is still living by herself. She has always been a very strong-willed person, but we are not sure how many more days on earth that God may grant to her. We are glad that our work situation and lifestyle allows for Paula to go and visit her on short notice. I was left to hold down the fort and have more work to do than hours in the day, so it was prudent that I remained in Charlotte although I would have liked to go. Paula is due back Friday night, and then we head to Marietta Ohio early on Saturday. We delayed returning to The Big House by a day so Paula could spend another day with Aunt Pauline.

As we move up the trail on our hike today, we are on the Trail of The Cross. The cross is where we gain our identity in Christ and the path to bring our image in line with God’s image. Until we learn how our lives as believers are completely integrated with Christ through the cross, we will have difficulty growing to maturity spiritually. This is the 12^th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

Principles of Spiritual Growth – The Cross

Understanding and appropriating the facts of the cross proves to be one of the most difficult and trying of all phases for the growing believer. Our Lord holds His most vital and best things in store for those who desire to grow into a mature faith, for those who hunger and thirst for His very best as it is provided through our Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 5:6 tells us, “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.” The believer’s understanding of the two aspects of the cross gives the key to both spiritual growth and life-giving service.

The cross is the starting point from which all Godly living must grow. We shall never know the experience of Christ’s victory in our lives until we are prepared to put our faith in His victory at the cross as the solution for our personal victory today.

There is no victory for us which was not first His. What we are to experience He purchased, and what He purchased for us we ought to experience. The beginning of the life of holiness is faith in the crucified Christ which sees more than His substitutionary work. It is a faith which sees yourself identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

As our Substitute, He went to the cross alone, without us, to pay the penalty of our sins. As our Representative, He took us with Him to the cross, and there, in the sight of God, we all died together with Christ. We may be forgiven because He died in our stead. We may be delivered because we died with Him.  Through the crucifixion of the old man with Christ the believer has been made dead unto sin. He has been completely freed from sin’s power. He has been taken beyond sin’s grip, and the claim of sin upon him has been nullified. In our lives, the shackles of sin have been completely destroyed.

We are not left to deal with the old life ourselves. It has been dealt with by Christ on the cross. This is the fact which must be known since on that fact is built the New Testament principle and doctrine of holiness. In other words, the cross is as much the foundation for our spiritual growth as it was for us being made righteous in God’s sight. Both gifts spring from the same work and are two aspects of the same salvation.

Now, as long as the believer does not know this dual aspect of his salvation, the best he can do is seek to handle his sins through confession, which is after the damage has been done! 1 John 1:9 is clear that we are made clean, even when we do sin, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” This takes care of the penalty of our sins but not the source. Is it not time we allowed the Holy Spirit to get at the source and cut off this stream of sins before they are committed? Is this not infinitely better than the wreckage caused by sin even though confessed? When believers get sick and tired of spinning year after year in a spiritual squirrel cage—sinning, confessing, but then sinning again—they will be ready for God’s answer to the source of sin, which is death to self, brought forth from the completed work of the cross.

Our understanding of the finished work of our death to sin, in Christ at the cross, is God’s one way of deliverance—there is no other way because that is the way He did it. We learned not to add to a finished work in the matter of our salvation, and now we must learn not to add to the finished work of freedom from the shackles of sin. We will be freed when we enter His prepared freedom—there is no other. Romans 6:14 is clear, “Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.”

God has taken the shackles of sin off, let us not put them back on. We need to accept the power of the cross by faith  to live as Paul encouraged the church of the Galatians 5:13, “For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have discovered that we have been set free on the Trail of The Cross. We must understand that the same power that saved us is the power we have available to live right before God as we grow spiritually to be in His image. Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Discipleship that will lead us along our trek of spiritual growth. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person, so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 290 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Self-Denial

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 290 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 10^th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Self. Today we will expand on yesterday’s trail, as we hike the Trail of Self-Denial.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has been a good week for work progress so far, and we have already completed several tasks that have been in the queue for a while and are making progress on others.

In a somewhat unexpected event, Paula headed to Fort Myers, Florida early Tuesday morning to spend a couple of days with her Aunt Pauline. She is not doing well, and it may be the last time she will be able to visit her. It’s a 12-hour drive, so it makes for a long trip to take alone. But, we both agreed that it would be best if I stayed and focused on our workload. Plus, it would be difficult to make arrangements on short notice for Paula’s mom who lives with us.

As we move from the Trail of Self, it is time now to hike a parallel trail called the Trail of Self-Denial. One of the most difficult tasks that we have in our lives is to deny ourselves those things which we crave. That could be food, drink, sex, power, or anything else that we struggle to overcome. Self-denial usually will not allow lasting victory through the struggles in our life because it is based on self. We established yesterday that left to ourselves, we will usually choose self over service to others or God. On our hike today, we will focus on why it requires a real change of heart and mind to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and certainly spiritually.

This is the 11^th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Self-Denial

Remember that I have mentioned several times previously that the word for heart and mind is used interchangeably within God’s Word. To keep it simple, I will refer to the mind throughout this hike today.

Until we are willing to change our thinking by what we allow going into our minds about ourselves and our commitment to God, we will continue on the roller coaster of spiritual chaos. Self-denial will never work long-term unless we change the way we think. We change the way we think by what we permit through the filters of our mind. This is why diets rarely work and addicts have such a difficult time breaking free from the chains that bind them. Although you may desire to be free, until and unless you see yourself as being completely free in your mind, you will eventually slip back into your old mindset.

In order to grow spiritually, you have to be convinced in your mind that it all happened at the cross of Christ. Your sins were paid for. Your sinfulness was dealt with. Both by the ultimate act, which is death. As Christ called out as he gave up His life, “It is finished.” You have already received the benefits of the work of the cross simply by grasping this truth and believing the finished work of the cross completely in your mind.

So the question is, “How is this applied to our lives?” First, through the Word, we find out what God did about our problem. Second, as we become thoroughly convinced in our minds of the fact then begin to understand it clearly, we are able to agree and understand this truth. Third, as we exercise faith in God’s fact, or in other words become fully convinced in our minds, we begin to receive the benefits of that finished work in our experiences of daily life. It was true of our faith in Christ for salvation, and it is true in the matter of our freedom from the slavery of the self-life. Then it no longer becomes denying ourselves but fully comprehending that Christ paid it all.

You may be asking, “How can you have this mindset change?” The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in Romans 12:1-2, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Changing the way you think is such a powerful concept. We do this by filtering out the impurities of this world through God’s Word so that what actually is filtered into our minds is pure and right.

An analogy to help us grasp this concept that I think most of us are familiar with is the Brita filter that you may have in a pitcher or faucet in your home. As the water, that may not be completely pure, goes through the filter, it traps all of the impurities and only allows pure water to pass through. In the same way, as we read, study, and meditate on God’s Word, it becomes the filter of our minds so that only true and right things pass through. This is best described in Philippians 4:8, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

As we learn to fix our minds on the finished work of the cross of Christ, the Holy Spirit will begin to faithfully and effectively apply that finished work of the cross to the self-life. This will allow our self-life to be held in the place of death, resulting in the truth of Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have explored the truths on the Trail of Self-Denial. We have come to understand that the only way to have lasting spiritual growth is to change the way we think through changing what we allow to pass into our minds. Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of The Cross where our entire identity in God is based. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 289 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Self

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 289 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 9^th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Consecration. Today our hike takes us to the Trail of Self.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were able to take a break Sunday afternoon for a 4-mile walk as the weather was sunny and pleasant. Paula and I always enjoy our times of walking, as it spurs great conversations covering many aspects of our lives. Unless our plans change, we are heading back up to The Big House on Friday evening for a little over two weeks. We hope to get up there while the daffodils are still in bloom as we have missed seeing them in bloom the past couple of years. The daffodils come from ones that were around the property which my Granny planted, so they are special to us.

It is time to head out on our hike for today on the Trail of Self. This is a difficult trail because although we like to think of ourselves as being selfless, the contrary is true. Most of the thoughts that we have and the decisions that we make are centered on how we are going to benefit. Very few people, if any, are purely selfless in the decisions that they make. On our hike today, let us learn how to change our thinking about self when it comes to our relationship to God. This is the 10^th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Self

One of the most important factors in Christian growth is the Holy Spirit’s revelation of the self-life to the believer. Self is the fleshly, carnal life of nature, the life of the first Adam described in Ephesians 2:1, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.” Even the Apostle Paul in the height of his ministry understood how difficult it is for us not to be a selfish person when he wrote Romans 7:18, “And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.”  Nowhere do spiritual principles mean more than here. Plato, with his “know thyself,” was more right than he knew but still only half right. Paul, in Galatians 2:20 says “…it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” and was 100% right!

In order for you to get beyond just knowing about the Lord Jesus and enter into a consistent and growing personal knowledge of and fellowship with Him, you must first come to know yourself. This is more than just introspection. It is the Holy Spirit guiding and teaching us through God’s Word and trusted mentors.

Here are a few items that we must learn first to grow from self-centered to Christ-centered:

• Galatians 2:20 – My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
• John 12:24 – I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives.
• Romans 6:5-6 – Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

We must continually be learning about ourselves. Self-revelation precedes divine revelation—that is a principle for both spiritual birth and spiritual growth. As a believer, if you are going through struggle and failure, it is very possible that you are being carefully and lovingly handled by his Lord in a very personal way. You are being taken through the experience (which sometimes lasts for years) of self-revelation and into death to your self so that you can be shaped into the image of God. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”

God sometimes works in our life by paradox. Success comes through failure; victory comes through defeat; and yes, even life springs out of death. That is death to self.  The only element in the believer’s life that crumbles away is that which has to go anyway. The new life can never be harmed or affected. Self will never cast out self.

Think of the analogy of the potter’s wheel. You start as a lump of clay and the master potter removes all the “self-parts” that are not to be part of the finished vessel. Another analogy is to think of the master goldsmith, by intense heat the gold is refined by removing all the dross that is not pure gold. Through God’s Spirit and His Word, He is the master potter and goldsmith working in our lives. So often the means utilized by the Spirit is adversity because most of the time we will not come to our sense of need until we feel the potter’s sculpting tools or the refiner’s fire.

We like to quote the verses Romans 8:28-29 as if God is going to work everything out for what we think is good, but let’s look at those verses again. The verses read, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” In these verses, God is working everything out for our good according to His purpose for us and His purpose for us is to make us become like His Son. Does that give these verses a bit of a different perspective to you? In order to become like His Son, we must have purged from our lives everything that is not in the image of God. That is difficult for all of us. Fortunately, it is not up to us to make that change, but Christ living in us that will. What is impossible with self is possible with God.

Someone has rightly said, “There are many ‘separated from the world’ Christians who are not ‘separated from themselves’ Christians.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have explored the truths about self that are found on the Trail of Self. Through God’s Holy Spirit and His Word, we can trim away self to be the appropriate vessel that God has destined us to be. We are created in God’s image through this process. His image will shine through who we are. This is a gradual process as we grow and mature in our faith.

Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Self-Denial, where we will come to understand that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 288 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Consecration

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 288 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 7^th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Identification. Today our hike takes us to the Trail of Consecration.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trial of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were able to make some good progress over the weekend, but I also felt the need to have some downtime to relax and recharge a bit. It has always been difficult for me to set aside the time to recharge. There is always so much to do, and I am energized by most of the projects that we are involved in. As I grow older and wiser, I do realize that all my activities, when consecrated to God, are worthwhile and beneficial. The times of rest and reflection are as important as the times of focus and pursuit.

Let us head out on the hike for today on the Trail of Consecration. The word consecration is not a word that is used much outside of religious circles but it means to be set apart for God. As we hike today, let us learn about this word and set this entire trek apart for God. This is the 9^th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Consecration

As we start out on today’s hike, we have to realize and understand that we do not have the capability to change other people in any aspects of life, and we certainly cannot force someone to be consecrated to God. It might be good to stress several points just here:

1. A Christ follower will never grow to healthy spiritual maturity through pressure, exhortation, or guilt. It is only when the Spirit has prepared a heart will a life change.
2. Healthy progress is based on the realization of a need combined with the understanding and appropriation of the truths in Christ which make for real growth.
3. The practical aspect of all truth and especially what are considered the deeper truths will not be evident until we are aware of our need to progress spiritually. If we do not become aware of our need, we will not grow spiritually and will remain an infant in Christ.

Hebrews 6:1 – “Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God…”

This subject of consecration seems to be badly misunderstood by so many Christ followers. Many, especially those who are young in the Lord, have been victimized time and time again in this matter of surrender or commitment. The club most commonly used is “The Lord Jesus gave His all for you, now the least you can do is give your all for Him!” The believer is exhorted and pressured to consecrate, surrender, and commit his life to Christ on the basis of his love and gratitude for what has been done on his behalf – the crucifixion of Christ. It is like telling a toddler who has recently learned to walk that they are now expected to run a marathon race. Training for a marathon is a very slow and gradual process. It takes time, practice, proper eating, proper rest, and so much more. A toddler would not have the understanding, desire, or capability to do so.

As growing Christians, it takes time for us to see the necessity of going beyond the love motive to the life motive. We must grow so that our lives are lived for something beyond ourselves. Philippians 1:21 says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Our consecration, surrender, or commitment will never last if we are just responding to outside pressures to be consecrated to God. It must be based on our recognition of our need for God to work through us, which will provide us the internal desire to make it happen. This desire is fueled by our love for God to do His will in all things. Yielding to God on any different basis will simply amount to our trying to live for Him without the strength to do so.

Romans 12:1 explains what God expects, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Until we have done this, there is nothing else we can do.  This passage comes after Romans 6, which we explored yesterday, where we learned that we are crucified with Christ. There is a reason for this order—crucifixion comes before consecration. An uncrucified self refuses to be consecrated. This is why so many people with all sincerity are always recommitting themselves to God with little lasting change.

A careful study of all the letters of the Apostle Paul will show that they are written on the basis of the identification truths that we explored yesterday in Romans 6. Remember that we are identified with Christ in His Crucifixion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension in that order. The cross is the focal point of Romans 6 — the fact that God assigns our old fallen Adam-life to the cross where it died from God’s perspective. Our new life is in Christ and our consecration, or setting apart, to God is summarized in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have discovered the treasure that is found on the Trail of Consecration. If we desire to be “set apart” for God, then we must fully grasp the truths found in Galatians [2:20]. Just like our trek of life each day on our Wisdom-Trek, the consecration of ourselves to God is a gradual process as we grow and mature in our faith. Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Self, and I think most of us realize that “self” is a difficult trail to conquer. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Wisdom-Trek / Creating a Legacy

Welcome to Day 287 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.

This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Identification

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 287 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 7^th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Appropriation. Today our hike takes us to the Trail of Identification.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. This weekend is focused on finalizing some company tax work and preparing returns for family members. Once we finish those up, we will be able to focus on our personal return. We did make further progress on business planning projects that we set aside because of our heavy workload.

For so many of us, our identity of who we are is tied to the work that we do. I fall victim to this thinking and have to continually remind myself that we should consider our work as the platform for which we create and live our legacy. The positive impact that we have on others’ lives is most important. With that, we did take a break from our work for a great nephew’s birthday party on Saturday, and we do plan to worship with our local congregation at church on Sunday. We may also get outdoors on Sunday for a nice long walk.

As we consider our identity, as Christ followers, our identity should be in Christ, which is why today on our hike on the Trail of Identification we will explore the various aspects of how we are to identify with Christ. This will give us a focus of what to consider and how this applies to our spiritual lives. This is the 8^th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

Principles of Spiritual Growth – Identification

As we head out on our hike for today, our direction moves from the core truths of our new birth in Christ to the discovery of what we would call the growth truths. The primary passage to understand our identification with Christ is Romans 6. We will dig for the nuggets of wisdom that are found in that passage.

The very foundation of Christianity is Christ in us. The Christian life is Christ living His life in and through the believer. The life of Christ is reproduced in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is a new life with new relationships. When Christ resided in a physical body while on earth, he was restricted by the limitations of that physical body. This is why after his ascension into heaven he sent the Spirit of Truth that could reside in all believers at once, allowing His impact to be much greater found in John 16:13-14, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.”

Our identification with Christ is such a crucial element for a believer. Today we will barely scratch the surface of what this means. There are four essential ways that we have our identification in Christ. Those are:

1. We are identified with Christ in His Crucifixion.
2. We are identified with Christ in His Burial.
3. We are identified with Christ in His Resurrection.
4. We are identified with Christ in His Ascension.

While I could write a lot about each of these points, all four of these points are covered in Romans 6:1-11, so I will read it first and then wrap it up with a few comments,

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? ² Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? ³ Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? ⁴ For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

⁵ Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. ⁶ We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. ⁷ For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. ⁸ And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. ⁹ We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.¹⁰ When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. ¹¹ So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

There is a lot that is contained in these 11 verses. It would do us all well to meditate on all that is there. But, let’s look briefly at the four points.

· Crucifixion

All of our needs as sinners have been fully provided for in the cross of Jesus. Christ paid our sin debt. He died to set us free from our spiritual death. When Christ died, we died with Him. We are identified with His death. When did we die to sin? Romans 6:2 is past tense. We died to sin when we put our faith in Christ as our personal Savior.

· Burial

We who have died with Christ have also been buried with Christ. Our burial with Christ is beautifully pictured in the ordinance of baptism. In Romans 6:4, the baptism that is referred to here is not water baptism. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit by which we were made part of the body of Christ. Water baptism is a sign or symbol of that, but the essential thing here is the baptism of the Spirit. We become united with Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.

· Resurrection

Believers have been resurrected to new life with Christ. Because of our co-resurrection with Christ we walk in a new kind of life. Our relationship to Christ is symbolized by the union of marriage in scripture. By His death, we were liberated, and by the co-resurrection, we produce righteousness unto God. Romans 6:5 says that “Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.”

· Ascension

God’s solution to our sin problem was to put us to death with Christ. He put us in the grave with Christ to remove us from the old realm in which we operated. He raised us out of the grave with Christ to bring us into a new kind of life. We have been co-crucified, co-buried and co-resurrected with Christ in order to walk in the newness of life with Christ. Christ lives His life in us.

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we just barely scratched the surface of the riches that are found on the Trail of Identification. For today it is sufficient that we grasp that since we are identified with Christ, we should no longer act as if we are not.

Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Consecration. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

1. Live Abundantly (Fully)
2. Love Unconditionally
3. Listen Intentionally
4. Learn Continuously
5. Lend to others Generously
6. Lead with Integrity
7. Leave a Living Legacy Each Day

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!