What it means to "Grow in the Spirit."

guess a story in my life is unfolding in this time. It's one of those things that's very much worth writing but I just don't know how to write it. I don't even know where to begin.

There are different lines in the Christian faith that we must come to see some time in our lives. For me, that time has come. There is so much that I am learning right now... but as I learn much, and as these lines become clearer and more profound, the genuineness of the Christian practice of the preachers and saints of old and the saints of today become clear.

It's really hard to put in writing...
But this I can say:

1. Christian Living is more than just living right and obeying the Word of God. It is more than just living in accordance with the tenets of Scripture. But a Christian's life must be so much filled with God the Holy Spirit, so much so that our "will" or whatever consciousness we have is driven by the very Hand of God. That even in the exploration of Scripture, in the journey of knowing God... in theology and doctrines... it must be as such effectually and totally filled by the Spirit... such that the hunger and thirst is indeed of God and not of the flesh, such that one cannot keep it in in himself... like the prophet Isaiah, it will be like fire shut up in your bones, and you will be full to the brim, and you cannot help but proclaim these truths.
2. Preaching is also more than just preaching with exegetical exactitude. It is more than just presenting theology and doctrine... but preaching is the proclamation of God's Word. And God's Word is FIRE (Jeremiah 23:29). It must be preaching and teaching fully filled by God's Spirit and much laden with prayer... prayer! Oh, so much prayer.
3. We need much to learn to pray... so much we need to teach others to pray. It breaks my heart that we have hundreds of people who attend our church services, but our prayer-meetings are never full.

Most of these things I've known for a long time... but only now have I truly seen the reality of it. Truly "growing in the Spirit"... beginning to truly cry at the "impoverishedness" of the Christian people.

I am so far off where I ought to be.