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We can have a rich spiritual life or a poor spiritual life; the choice is ours. If we choose to have a rich spiritual life, we can do things to make it happen.

What does a rich spiritual life look like? What characterizes a rich spiritual life?

A rich spiritual life produces a desire to know God, to be with God, to be close to God, to commune with God. My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, I will seek.

A rich spiritual life produces a sense of closeness to God, a sense of God’s reality, an awareness of God’s presence.

A rich spiritual life produces an outpouring of praise and thanksgiving. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.

A rich spiritual life produces a desire to sing to God. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.

A rich spiritual life produces a desire to talk to the Lord frequently, to pray without ceasing.

A rich spiritual life produces a desire to listen to the Lord speaking to us in various ways. Yeshua said: My sheep know my voice.

Through the Word of God, through people, through circumstances, through God’s still, small voice, and in other ways, we try to hear God’s voice.

A rich spiritual life produces a desire to frequently interact with the Word of God. Blessed is the one whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night.

A rich spiritual life produces a desire to be close to the people in Messiah’s Community and get to know them and encourage them and strengthen them and serve them. Serve one another humbly in love. Carry each other’s burdens. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit.

A rich spiritual life produces a hunger and thirst for righteousness.

A rich spiritual life empowers us to say no to temptation.

A rich spiritual life produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

A rich spiritual life reduces our interest in the world and worldly acceptance and popularity and worldly success.

A rich spiritual life makes our hope of Heaven and eternal life very real.

A rich spiritual life produces an awareness of people’s need for salvation and the desire to proclaim the gospel to everyone we can.

A rich spiritual life produces the desire to honor the Lord with the firstfruits of our time, talents and treasures.

What does a poor spiritual life look like?

Inconsistent living, frequently giving in to temptation. Being lukewarm, not hot. No fire. No zeal. No passion, no excitement, no enthusiasm for God, serving God, the community of God, the Word of God, the gospel of God. Too much interest in the world, in money and status and success and material things; going along with the majority.

A poor spiritual life looks like rarely reading the Bible or thinking about it during the day; infrequently talking to the Lord throughout the day; haphazard involvement in Messiah’s Community; not doing anything to serve the people in Messiah’s Community; little interest in people’s salvation or proclaiming the gospel of salvation; not giving the Lord the firstfruits of our time, talents and treasure.

I want a rich spiritual life, not a poor spiritual life. How about you?

Good News: We can choose to have a rich spiritual life, and we can do things to have a rich spiritual life.

It’s true that we are saved by grace, and we are sustained by grace. We don’t work for salvation. However, we can work out our salvation. We can do things to develop and nurture and maintain a rich spiritual life.

Human beings are born with an old nature, a sin nature. It’s called “the flesh,” although it involves more than the body. The flesh includes the mind and the emotions. The acts of the flesh include sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

After we are born again, we can choose to sow to please the old nature or sow to please the new nature and the Spirit. Rabbi Paul warned the Galatians: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

Do not be deceived – because it’s easy to deceive ourselves that our spiritual choices don’t matter. But they do matter. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. People mock those who say something will happen and it doesn’t happen. But God is not like that. What He has said will happen, will happen. And He has said that those sow to please the new nature and the Spirit will reap eternal life, and those who sow to please their old nature will reap destruction.

Therefore, it makes no sense to sow to please the flesh. It makes total sense to sow to please the new nature and the Spirit.

So, how do we do that? How do we sow to please the new nature and the Spirit? We practice the spiritual disciplines. Practicing the spiritual disciplines strengthen the new nature and produces godliness. Paul wrote this to Timothy: Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. For physical training is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.

The word translated “discipline” means to exercise or train. People develop training programs to get into shape and stay in shape, so their bodies will look and feel good and function at peak performance. We need to do the same with our spiritual lives. We need a spiritual training program to get into spiritual shape and stay in spiritual shape so that we will be godly and function at peak spiritual performance.

An effective spiritual training program involves sound spiritual exercises, practicing the spiritual disciplines.

We need to discipline ourselves to read the Bible regularly on our own. We need to discipline our minds to talk to the Lord throughout the day. We need to discipline ourselves to be actively involved in Messiah’s Community, and serving our brothers and sisters in the community. We need to discipline ourselves to spread the gospel. We need to discipline ourselves to give the Lord our firstfruits, the first and the best of our time, talents and treasure.

Rabbi Paul described the importance of exerting spiritual effort in another  way when he wrote to the Corinthians. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Paul worked hard at living for the Lord. He encouraged Messiah’s followers in Corinth to do the same. He compared working hard at living for the Lord to running a race. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. In most races, one person wins and gets the prize. Living for the Lord is like running in a race, but this race is different because we’re not competing against others. We’re competing against ourselves. All of us can win the prize.

How do we run in such a way to win the prize? We do it by going into strict training. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. The ancient Greeks valued excellence in athletics. They had games, like the Olympics, to honor those who competed and won. Those who competed in the games went into strict training to prepare for the games. They trained hard for their events. Like those athletes, we need strict training – the strict training of the spiritual disciplines and the pursuit of godliness.

And, like Paul, we want to run, not aimlessly, but with focus, with purpose, knowing where we want to get to. We are to continually remind ourselves that we are here to live well, serve God and live forever with the Lord in Heaven.

Again using an athletic comparison, Paul compared himself to a boxer. I do not fight like a boxer beating the air. When a boxer is fighting, he does not want to punch the air. He wants to punch his opponent. Paul compared himself to a boxer who was landing his punches. However, his opponent was not another boxer. His opponent was himself. No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. Paul did not want to be a hypocrite who preached to others that God wants us to be godly, has given us all the resources we need to be godly, and then live in a way that was inconsistent with his preaching. He knew that hypocrites disqualify themselves from receiving the prize. So, like a boxer, Paul fought hard against his opponent – himself. He fought to do what was right. He fought to be godly. He fought to resist temptation. He fought to keep himself under control. He fought to serve the Lord and the gospel.
Be like Paul. Choose to have a rich spiritual life. Please the new nature and the Spirit, not the old nature. Have a spiritual training regimen in place. Practice the spiritual disciplines, which produce godliness. Work hard at them. Run the race in the right way so you win the prize. Stay focused on the goal. Fight hard against your opponent – yourself. You will be so blessed, so greatly rewarded, and so glad you did!