Most christians know the importance of spirituality.Spirituality and the bible, pray, is "basic skills" of the Christian life, but if the spirituality as a must do thing only "bear", it will be difficult to really taste the sweet of spirituality, also hard to spirituality into our daily life, it is difficult to realize spirituality is the practice of our spiritual life and growth, is at any time and life.

Christian spirituality in from the concept of "spirit" and "fix" this two word.Spirit, according to the biblical revelation from god, when "the Lord god made man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils, he became a living soul, named Adam."(gen 2:7) "spiritual", is due to the live in the spirit of god, the holy spirit, and of the holy spirit.Therefore, spiritual premise is: god gave his spirit to people, and make him within the spirit of god lives in his own person.Spiritual goal is: to make our life more like god son, Jesus Christ's life, show the beauty of life, Christ is full of Christ to grow in stature.Our spiritual pursuit of the ultimate goal is, as Paul said: "the image of his son" (ROM. And join).

Achieve the goal of this process is the need to "particularly attentive" : "with confidence, with virtue;With virtue, and to add knowledge;With the knowledge and temperance;With restraint, and with patience;Have patience, and with godliness;A religion, but also with the love of the brethren;With the love of the brethren, and with the love of the all;If you had these abundance, will make you on the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, don't be lazy fruit."(2 pet. 1:5-8)

The growth of spiritual life, therefore, is a process of practice, and this process of "repair" is not a process of self-improvement and self accumulation, but a process of the knowledge of god, the "understanding" is not only is the "know" in mind, but also the connection of life with god.A true spiritual theology is in everyday every moment, based on grace, christlikeness.

's (Ann Jordan Aumann) in his book "spiritual theology", define a way: "spiritual theology belongs to one of theological subjects, according to the truth of the divine revelation and personal religious experience, and it will define the transcendental essence of life, its growth and development of the law, interpretation (individual) by its spiritual soul appeared and mellow process."Because spiritual theology is based on the revelation of god, and is about people in real life practice, god is "is a kind of realization and real christians live experience, it's in the category of the Christian faith, and category as the foundation, the most important ideas and the whole life experience together."(wheat GeFu (examples of McGrath) Christian "Spirituality", P2) so, the author try to a recorded in the bible "" god wills for us - David, for example, through the analysis of his life in different situation, the knowledge of god and the connection with god, and to reflect on our spiritual life growth law and traps, which makes us think of our daily life the Spirituality of theology.

A present, obedience, waiting for praise

1. Know yourself, gratitude is built

Psalms 100 is a praise poem.The poem wrote:

Shout for joy to the Lord!Willing to serve the Lord, ye when singing to him!When you know that the Lord is god!We was made, he is also belong to him;We are his people, and his sheep pasture.Enter into his gates with Thanksgiving;Praise to his school.When thanks to him, bless his name!For the Lord is good.His mercy endureth for ever;His truth until ten thousand generations.

Poem first statement calling people to come to praise god, is the hair of the universal, because the work of man is he.Paul clearly pointed out that in his heart to know god, because the person is deliberately not glorify him, nor gave thanks to him, so idea to dim."The things of god, people can know, manifest in his heart...Because, although they knew god, they neither glorified him as god, nor gave thanks to him.But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened."(ROM 1:19, 21) as a result, people are able to know god, also want to know god.

Personnel to serve god, serve is the nature of the most beautiful and most "singing to him."Therefore, a spiritual characteristics and value of life lies in "praise god", and it is the praise from the deepening understanding of god.In this process, a devotional speculative approach should be and perceptual approach are complementary and interactive relationship, and can not be divided.Can be seen in the poem, we recognize and praise to god, the first is to our his creation, and then is he to our chosen, is his lead to us again, finally he care of us.

Burr, in his "the mysticism of love" theology (love - mysticism theology), will love the process of learning in the paragraph is divided into four steps: for the sake of their self-love, and for their benefit, for the sake of god, love of love for god's sake."Love yourself" is a kind of instinct, but people don't really know how to love themselves, is unable to satisfy their need for love."The hungry self, in fact is thwarted our moral development and spiritual growth."Desire to god "(Richard foster, bibby, life, P46) process of Christian spirituality is from the second to the fourth paragraph.Ultimately achieve ourselves in god's perspective, in a way that is god loves to love ourselves.

A person the first step to spiritual life growth, is the understanding of his life was made, and on the correct understanding of obedience, gratitude, praise.People created by god's will, is the spirit of the people of god, man's environment is also out of the "placement" of god."The Lord god planted a garden in the east of Eden, there he put the man whom he had formed."(gen 2:8)

2. Began in rebirth and purport of obedience

We today for the concept of "spiritual" are often some errors: think spirituality belongs to the mystery, advanced;Is "mature" Christian thing to do;Is solitude, meditation as the main form of spiritual things.However, the growth of life from the moment of life, a process of continuous.Christian's spiritual life from when to start?Not from reading theological seminary, or into the monastery, also is not received from the mission, or participate in the serve, but from accept salvation of Jesus Christ - rebirth in the start of the holy spirit.

Therefore, one of the most basic practice of spirituality is obedience to god for the creation of their own lives and arrangement.This obedience is from "self center" values, world view, values to the will of god as the joy.From this obedience "to god for god" at that moment, recognition of his own life;Implementation of every situation in life after the minds and behavior of choice.

"Then the Lord said, my thoughts are not your thoughts;My ways are not your ways.How days above the ground, so my ways higher than your ways;My thoughts higher than your thoughts."(9) "" - in the first, a believer spiritual practice is to be in front of god, to accept and know yourself: longitudinal, accepting yourself and praise of god's creation;Horizontal, see his "middle way" (ROM. 12:3).

David in Bethlehem and hezekiah minimum out of eight sons, but his in the family is in a position of the least valued."Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel," (" ") has no David.At the same time, David's favor and protection are common and didn't get his little son, he was sent the sheep outside alone, "sometimes for the lion, sometimes to the bear," (" 17:34), brothers and father still make him in such a dangerous wild sheep, even with the great prophet "the sacrifice", "at" with such a thing, no father to get him back.And David looks beautiful eyes and pleasing looks, no older brother eliab the kind of hero like tall.

According to the common sense, these enough to frustrating, difficult to accept, heart of complaints.We often complain about their bodies, character, family and situation.After believing, often under the guise of spiritual, even refused to accept themselves and their environment.We tend to see themselves and others "proud" sinful nature, but we are not too sensitive to low self-esteem and self-pity "of sin.Actually, pride and inferiority is the performance of sin and the cause of its nature is the same, is not god as god.

Exclude themselves or others, refused to obey and gratitude for situation, the essence of which is to deny the sovereignty of god and his goodness.There often is hiding a lot of trauma in life and bias, but for the sake of self-pity, sympathy mentality, let our spiritual prayer into a passive waiting, endure, blindly expect god to change the environment, which made us miss the precious spiritual practice opportunities.I really like the poetry "has chosen me road" in a 1: "my time in your hand, no matter or fast or slow, according to your joy to delimit raise, I have no you like;If you decide I must endure, many day after day, year after year I don't want to early to clear, everything would change early."(ni analytic) sing in the life of praise to god, obedience is to carry out the day after day in the year after year.