Off the Sidewalk (part 3)

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."   -Romans 8:15

‘Spirituality’ has been making a sort of come-back in our culture today. This isn’t necessarily good. There’s a world of difference between egocentric (man-centered) spirituality and theocentric (God-centered) spirituality. Egocentric spirituality uses things like prayer as a consumer tool. Egocentric spirituality primarily asks ‘What do I get?’ It’s basically a form of karma, where if you do good things you get good things. Theocentric spirituality, on the other hand, revolves around God. It doesn’t primarily seek to ‘get things’ but rather to get God himself that we might bring glory to his name.

The theocentric or Christian teaching of prayer is much more realistic than the egocentric or ‘consumeristic’ teaching of prayer. Romans 8:15  says that “by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” By him we cry. Cry almost always means a person is in distress. In this verse we see that the Christian life will have times of suffering and distress. Christian spirituality is extremely realistic. The Bible never says Christians will have it easier than anyone else, rather the Christian life is full of weakness. In other words, the Spirit saves us through our weakness, not from our weakness.

Everyone is going to experience bad things. The real question is where do we turn in the midst of these bad things. The Spirit gets us to look toward and turn to the Father, toward Abba in our weakness… then we grow. If in our times of weakness and suffering we pray/cry towards the Father as an adopted child, then there will be a deepening of wisdom, development of beauty of heart, and a spiritual clarity. But if we turn away from our Father towards counterfeit gods, we’ll live in denial and shrink under suffering and weakness. Prayer is not a consumer tool, it’s a refiners fire. This is amazing encouragement! When the Spirit comes into our lives, it’s like being born. All the groaning and crying is for a purpose. Our weakness will grow us, out of infancy and into maturity.

(Part 3 of 6 in the series "Off the Sidewalk." Adapted from Tim Keller's sermon "Praying in the Spirit.")