Session 11 – Personal Spiritual Formation

Developing a Personal Relationship with Christ or How to Regain Your First Love
3 Particular things
Personal Spiritual formation – holistic
 Encompasses many aspects of our life
Focus: Prayer
 Value and critical importance of prayer – taking care to cultivate things that benefit our personal
spiritual formation
 God changes our hearts – from the inside – God did all the work
o We still follows those things that God is pleased to bless – that of wisdom and is holy
Personal Spiritual Formation
 Help us grow in out spiritual life
How to Regain your first love?
 Comes from Revelation Chapt 2 – it was written to 7 churches (Asian Minor) to be read by the body of
Christ in those churches
 Apostle John - this thing
 (2:1) – to the angel
o ‘angel’ = messenger
 Spirit of God is communicating to Apostle John about evaluation of the church in Ephesus
o He is acknowledging their work and patience and how they do not tolerate sin
o He is saying that the people have grown in that kind of maturity
 This church was not full of wickedness and hypocrisy, thy were doing some good things – but they have
become sterile spiritually
o They lost their love for God and the reception of God’s love as the main motivation
 They themselves are able to display and doing good things, being patience, not denying
Jesus (outward sense)
 God look inward sense (the heart)
o They are no longer affected by the love of God – therefore the reflection of their love for God has
gone cold
 The love that they used to have is no longer there.
 The affection and love for each other has become dull – there is no more desire for God
o Invest in the relationship to fix it!
 We don’t want to go cold in our relationship with God
o “First Love” – lost your love and passion
 Loss of passion for God and His meaning to us
 Are you not excited with your relationship with God? With the gospel that rescued you
from sin and death and give you a freedom that you could never have apart from salvation
 – the freedom that you no longer belong to this world but to the things of eternal life
(wonderful life)
Reasons why Christians tend to lose the fire?
 Emphasis on sovereignty of God – too passive, prayerlessness
o God is in charge – He knows everything around me
o We take God for granted because we know He is in charge, because we know that He is not going
to die – whatever He wants to happen will happen
o Some Christian know that God is someone we can manipulate
o There is no much that we can and need to do – this is the wrong attitude of heart
 Emphasis on doctrine – too intellectual, lack of subjective element
o Sometimes we learn it on a class setting – it become intellectual thing instead of personal
 The essence of learning God would not be the same – the purpose, that is to become
closer to God by knowing Him will not be fulfilled
 Emphasis on public worship – neglect of private worship
o Public worship = church – on Sundays
 But neglect personal worship on Monday – Saturday
o We forget that we live before God 24/7
 Sometimes we got too lazy and thoughtless
 We thought going on Sunday is enough
We should go to church, grow in understanding and knowledge in the Christian doctrine and things of the
Bible, have the highest respect for God governing Kingship
 But don’t let it make us grow cold in our relationship with God
How can we regain out first love?
 Being reminded of the reality of the living Jesus – he really was raised
o Jesus is alive and well
o Jesus is ruling and reigning now – He is reigning over all things
o God Kingship through the rein of Christ
 We can walk with Jesus just as the disciples walked with him – but even better because of Jesus’ teaching
about the Holy Spirit given to be our Comforter
o “it is to your advantage that I go away” – Christ is not with us in the bodily form, but the Spirit of
Christ is searching for us, enabling us, and working in our life as we trust in the Lord (not
ourselves)
 It is helping us to grow
 In the past, Jesus literally walk with his disciples with His human body – however, that
body constraint Him, it limited Him
 He wasn’t everywhere at all time as Jesus in His ministry (because of the limitation
of his body) – He cannot minister in different places altogether
  Now – with the Spirit, our (also other’s) connection to Christ can happen together
simultaneously to all Christians and believers everywhere
 The Spirit can be at many places at one time (Spirit don’t need to travel) – the spirit
of Christ is everywhere
o “I will come to you” – through the connection of the Holy Spirit
 It is not that Jesus is far away and the Holy Spirit is a substitution – Holy Spirit cannot be
separated from Christ (trinity)
 The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ who communicates to us about the reality of our
salvation in Christ
 Intinya:
o Knowing that Christ has never left us
 We have allowed ourselves to grow still – lose excitement, love and joy
 God is the source of all that – coming back to Him is a must
 We may turn our own back, get comfortable, and forget how priceless and
invaluable they are
o Christ is here through the work and power of the Holy Spirit
 How can we experience this? By the means of grace
o The Word – we can only know who Christ is through Scripture
o The Sacraments – fellowship with Christ through the Lord’s Supper
o Prayer

Prayer:
 Communication with God – fellowship and intimacy with God
Why Prayer?
 Prayer may be addressed to the Father through the mediation of Christ
o Jesus is our high priest mediator – he understand and relate to us, including our weakness
 He mediates us to the Father
o It is our privilege and responsibility to talk to God the Father through the Son
o “Our Father in heaven” – prayer is addressed to God the Father
o “through Jesus name” – through Christ
o Jesus pray to God all the time
 Paul had a problem – he prayed and pleaded 3 times
o It is a physical problem – satan try to weaken Paul
o Paul prayed regularly – God gave him the strength
 Either way, Christ is the key to communing with God effectively
o We can talk to God knowing that we were heard because we belong to Christ – Father have
perfect relationship with the Son
Christ dwells in our hearts through faith – through the Holy Spirit now
 Not just initial act of faith at conversion
 Not just the fact that I am a believer
 But renewed actings of faith
 We can renew our faith, reminding ourselves of it, submitting ourselves to Christ
o Talking to God through Christ or talking to Christ directly
 Christians faith are weak especially when there are uncertainty
o At times It seems that God is absent
 “by faith” – trusting in God’s Word that He will never leave us
Young people is strong is passion but wisdom is little
 Pray so we will never stray
 Pray connects us in a communicating way to God
o It is not to remind God our problem
o It is to remind your problems who God is
 We are not saved by the means of grace
o We are saved by accepting Christ as our saviour
o We participate in our salvation by growing – deliberate pursuit and attentiveness
 We have responsibility to follow God, pray, and be like Him
 We are not performing a duty by praying
o We are getting close to God through His Son by the power and working of the Holy Spirit
 Praying to God – through the Son – by His Spirit – in faith
 Believing that God is who He said He is
 Jesus has won salvation for us as a gift to us
 We are called to set our eyes and heart to Him – to not lose that first love
Conclusion:
 Prayer is the key, it is vital to having a personal relationship with Christ
o Talk to him about anything and everything
o Don’t wait for formal time, but continually do ‘arrow prayer’
 Arrow prayer: shooting up prayer – don’t need to wait
 Talk every time, all the time
o Pray for the good things your heavenly Father wants to give you
 He is a perfect father that love us perfectly
 Know that God is real – through His Son – we are provided
o We have everything we need to live an abundant life that is pleasing to God
 God love us that much to give His only Son to give us eternal life with Him in Him through Him
o We were made for to know the God whom image we bear
o Prayer is vital to our relationship growth