Spiritual Breathing.

Spiritual Breathing.

Dear Friends in the Christian faith, Greetings from Christine!

It is my earnest desire that you would grow in knowledge and love of God our Father, made possible through the work of his son, Jesus, facilitated through the presence of the sweet Holy Spirit in your life.  I have been praying for all of you—that you would desire the deeper life.  O, that you would crave to be filled with God in new ways, so that your faith will be real, vital and active . . . so that your love for our Heavenly Father will consume you in such a way that you cannot help loving others unselfishly.

I thank God for his unfathomable love, and for his desire to know us . . . isn’t that a radical notion?  The God of the Universe wants to know and be known by you and me.  Oh yeah, and he loves us.

Having just completed a little writing break, I wanted to share something I discovered from a challenging read called Not a Fan1  The concept might be called ‘Spiritual Breathing’.  The basic idea is that you live with a moment by moment awareness of the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit becomes as natural—as habitual—as breathing.  It’s just part of who you are.  Here’s how it works:  the moment you become aware of sin in your life, you exhale.  When you exhale, you breathe out and repent of your sin.  Repentance becomes a natural response and clears out space in our hearts for the Spirit to fill us.  So the moment you are prideful, jealous, lustful, harsh, selfish, impatient, or ______, you exhale and repent of your sin.

The only way to be filled with the Spirit is to empty myself of me.  When I empty me of me, it provides space for the Holy Spirit to fill me . . . hmmmm.

And then you inhale.  When you inhale, you breathe in and pray to be filled with the Spirit, and you surrender control over to him.  As you practice spiritual breathing, it teaches you to keep in step with the Spirit. 

Ah, now that is good—very good indeed!  Amen.

This week, my dear ones, we will peek over the shoulder of Paul’s secretary to read what Paul had to say in his letter to the church at Philippi.  ‘Twill be inspiring. 

I pray that you will be filled to overflowing with the Spirit, ready to feast on his life-sustaining Word.  Until the morrow, may the grace of our Lord surround each of you, may the peace of our Lord Jesus reign in your heart,  Christine.****

Notice with me the format of this briefing up until the four asterisks (*)--  It is written in the form of a personal letter, and contains five sections that would have been common in an ancient letter, such as in the first century when Paul wrote.  Here’s the thing, almost all of Paul’s letters have the exact same sections: greeting, prayer, thanksgiving, special contents, and  specific salutations in the closing.2  You will notice that as we dive into the book of Philippians.

I invite you to make ‘spiritual breathing’ part of who you are—if you do so, you are following Paul’s mandate to the church at Corinth to “take every thought captive”3, rather than letting the world around you mold the patterns of your heart and mind.  Amen.

Christine!