Becoming like Jesus (Part Four)

7.    God’s Unpredictable Interventions in My Life

As a new Christian, it seemed I was in the express lane for answered prayers. I don’t remember the details, but that is my impression. That lasted for perhaps two years.

About five years later, I was an aquatic biologist for the Pennsylvania Fish Commission. While doing field work, I developed severe tendonitis in my ankle, walking was very painful. At the time, I was reading a book Oral Roberts had written about healing.

The gist was that Oral Roberts didn’t heal; Jesus did through Oral Roberts. My application was to close my eyes and touch my ankle, imagining that Jesus was touching me. My ankle was instantly healed. That is the only time I have experienced such healing.

When I was dating the woman who is now my wife, God impressed me as I read Proverbs 31 one day that I should marry her. Looking back, she was and is not the perfect woman Proverbs 31 portrays (nor is any other woman!), but God used it to direct me. She has been a key part of my ministry.

While serving as a local church pastor, I applied for a discipleship position in our conference. Early one Thursday morning, months before I was selected for that role, I had what I can only call a vision that I would be hired. That is the only vision I have ever had. During the thirteen years I served as the Associate for Discipleship, I wrote much of the content that God has used to touch millions of people for Him after I retired from pastoral ministry.

In 2009, during an emotionally difficult time, I attended a discipleship seminar in South Carolina. I was sad because my perceived spiritual influence had been greatly diminished since I no longer served in a denominational position.

After the seminar, a staff member I had never met prayed for me. He said he saw an old-fashioned pump from which some water flowed. Then, he had another mental picture of much water surrounding the pump. He said he didn’t know what that meant, but I did within five seconds.

God promised that I would be far more spiritually fruitful in the future than I had been in the past. For nine years, nothing changed, but the confident expectation remained that it would. It happened after I retired in ways I could have never imagined, touching thousands of times more people than in my entire pastoral ministry.

I have been a Christian for fifty-five years, with God as my Shepherd. Usually, I am not acutely aware of His guidance. The exceptional times average out to an unusual encounter with Him once every eleven years! Sporadic, to be sure, but every encounter was life-changing.

8.    Small Group Bible Studies

People in the Navigators led my first Bible study in college. These studies produced an atmosphere of spiritual intimacy, interaction, sharing, and life application. It differed from my Sunday school class experiences and nourished my spiritual growth like nothing else had.

When I was involved in Cru’s ministry at Penn State University, I began leading a small group while also being a member of another group. These groups were significant factors in my spiritual growth and in that of others. One group of which I was a part motivated four or five of us in the group to enter vocational Christian ministry.

Reality reigns in the most effective small group meetings. Members don’t pretend they have it all together. They know one another’s hurting places. They support and encourage one another. They spur one another on to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24). Their association makes them more spiritually fruitful. See additional free spiritual growth resources for Christians. See Becoming like Jesus (Part Five).

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See free spiritual growth resources for Christians at https://www.christiangrowthresources.com.

God has empowered me to write His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength. It’s a free, evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship e-book. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead more than 4,151 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 11,178 people. I invite you to examine it.   https://www.christiangrowthresources.com/his-power-for-your-weakness

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