Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 296 of our trek, and yesterday we hiked on the 16th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Help. Today we will explore the importance of balance in all areas of our life as we hike the Trail of Cultivation.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek, we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. There is a lot of activity in and around The Big House this week. Sunday afternoon I invested several hours varnishing the woodwork in the library. I have the trim on two more walls to apply the 2nd coat to, and then it is onto the floor. Hopefully, we will have the library completed by the end of this week, and then we will move onto the other front room, which we call the parlor.

Our pair of hawks have been extremely busy this week and spending more time near their nest, which is right outside of our upstairs office, so it is enjoyable watching them. We can’t tell if they have actually laid their eggs yet as we do see both of them still flying around, but there is usually one of them near or on the nest. The female is noticeably larger than the male of this particular pair. If this is the same pair of hawks as in previous years, this is either their 5th or 6th year using the same nest.

As spring is manifesting itself with daylight lasting longer, the temperature rising, and flowers blooming, it is time to start cultivating our gardens and fields in preparation for planting crops. As we head out on our hike for today, we want to explore this important concept of our spiritual lives on the Trail of Cultivation. This is the 17th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

The cultivation of good habits and character traits in all area of our lives is very important. As our children were growing up and still to this day, I emphasize the importance of balance in everything that we do or are involved in. There can be little question concerning the importance of balance. It is so vital in the mechanical, physical, aesthetic, and spiritual realms. Faulty balance often results in the breakdown and possible devastation to the surrounding area.  This is true as we think about the cultivation and growing of crops in our spiritual lives.

In the agricultural world, there has to be the balance of the proper amount of rain, sun, nutrients, and temperature for proper growth to occur with any type of crop. When there is the proper balance, then the crops will produce a bountiful harvest that can be shared with many. As the crops are properly cultivated, all of its resources are initially used so that plant can grow to maturity. Once mature, it can then start producing what will later become the harvest.

It is the same with our spiritual lives. Each of us must be thoroughly cultivated before we can effectively cultivate others through us. As we are maturing, there will be areas of service that we can provide for God. It is important to realize, though, that until we are spiritually mature most of our service on the way to maturity is for our own development, not so much that of others. At first, as a growing believer we think, or would like to have others feel, that all our service is effective; but in time, we come to realize that the Lord is not doing so much through us as He is in us. Our Lord always concentrates on the greater need.

We are not saved to serve. We are matured to serve. Only to the extent, that cultivation reveals self for what it is are we in the position to assist others in their cultivation. We can best discover how to help cultivate others after we have been properly cultivated and understand ourselves as Proverbs 29:19 indicates, “As a face is reflected in water, so the heart reflects the real person.” Just as it takes a period of time for crops to mature and produce a harvest, to counterbalance knowledge of self, God enables us to mature over a period of time as mentioned in 2 Peter 3:18, “Rather, you must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

As we mature spiritually, in our excitement as Christ followers,  we are tempted to immediately pull or push others toward spiritual maturity, and then we wonder why they are so slow to learn and seemingly apathetic in their understanding and concern. We soon forget the many years it took, and the wandering in our wilderness ways that our Lord had to traverse with us in order to bring us over our Jordan and into Canaan.

Spiritual maturity takes time, and that timeline is different for each Christ follower. We need to allow God to cultivate us in our spiritual growth and maturity. Let us look at the example of Moses. Moses had all the wisdom of the Egyptians, yet his idea of delivering Israel was to slay an Egyptian! He had to be trained in God’s ways, which was spending forty years in Midian as a shepherd. After Moses had been cultivated sufficiently, he was sent back to Egypt. God said for him not to trouble about Israel but to go directly to Pharaoh, the cause of their chains. God didn’t train Israel at the first but a leader to lead Israel. God seeks to get leaders trained in the knowledge of His ways who will help lead His people.

To the extent that we learn how our Father has had to handle us through the years will we understand how He would have us share with others. We must be cultivated to be cultivators. It is not up to us to determine the spiritual growth timeline for another. We need to leave that in the hands of that master farmer. We cannot force growth in another person any more than we force an apple to grow and ripen before its time. If we try to force growth on another person, they will never mature properly or be able to live the rich and satisfying life that is possible.

Through the strength of Christ living in us, we are responsible for our growth, which should include walking a life of integrity before others, but we are not responsible for the growth of others. As the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:5-7, “After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us.  I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we learned the valuable lessons of growth on the Trail of Cultivation. We need to focus on becoming mature ourselves, and through our example and mentorship provide the proper cultivation for others to grow.

Tomorrow we finish up our current trek with the 18th trail, which is the Trail of Continuance. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 295 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 15th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Rest. Today we will explore a trail that all of us occasionally require which is the Trail of Help.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at The Big House in Marietta, Ohio. We drove up to Marietta on Saturday and arrived late Saturday evening. The daffodils are in full bloom and are beautiful. I have included a couple of pictures in today’s journal. It was cloudy and a bit rainy when we arrived, so I will try to get some additional pictures when it is sunny out this week. We do have a full week with work projects and renovation work ahead of us, so we will need to stay focused to meet our expectations. It does require coordination with Paula and me having a clear understanding of our individual strengths, so we can best serve our clients. We do not have to beg each other for help. We understand that help is available at all times. This allows us to maximize our effectiveness as we work closely with our clients assisting them with their businesses.

As we head out on our hike for today, an important aspect of our spiritual lives is to understand where our help comes from as we explore the Trail of Help.  This is the 16th of 18 trails which makes up the Trek we call…

I would like to take a bit of a different approach to this concept of help. For most of us, it is time to stop asking God for help. He didn’t help us to be saved, and He doesn’t intend to help us live the Christian life. Now, this probably sounds somewhat far-reaching, but stay with me as I explain. We need to know and understand that God’s help has already been set aside for us. It is up to us to appropriate and apply that help to our lives each day. We do not have to continually beg for his help. His help is ours for the taking.

There is no question where our help comes from. Psalms 121:1-3 tells us, “I look up to the mountains, does my help come from there?  My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth! He will not let you stumble; the one who watches over you will not slumber.”

As a Christ follower, it is not a matter of continually asking God for help. It is Christ living His life in us that already has provided all the help and strength that we will ever need. Hebrews 13:6 explains the confidence that we can have, “So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?’” 

The evil one, Satan, wants to keep us in the place of continual defeat in our lives so that we remain ineffective. He wants us to be in the place where we are always asking for what God says He has already provided. This is a defeatist attitude that should not be part of our lives as Christ followers. This principle holds true for all aspects of our Christian life. In Christ, we are complete and have been provided with everything that we need. Colossians 2:9-10 says, “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.”

We do not honor and bring glory to God by our continual begging for help for that which He has already provided to us. Philippians 4:19 reminds us of this truth, “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.” 

Our responsibility is to see in the Word all that is ours in Christ and then thank and trust Him for that which we need.

Dr. A. W. Tozer puts it this way, “We are forever asking God to do things that He either has already done or cannot do because of our unbelief. We plead for Him to speak when He has already spoken and is at that very moment speaking. We ask Him to come when He is already present and waiting for us to recognize Him. We beg the Holy Spirit to fill us while all the time we are preventing Him by our doubts.” 

Another area of weakness that we as Christ followers fall into is begging God to show us His will for our lives on matters that are clearly defined in His Word. We do not need to seek for guidance and direction in life, we need to know what is already proclaimed through knowing His Word. As we know His Word more fully, it will result in the fullness of Christ in our lives. Ephesians 3:19 provides further insight, “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.” Let us not forget that since Christ is the Word, the more we know God’s Word, the more Christ lives in us. John 1:14 says, “So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.”

While I do not adhere to the “name it and claim it” in theology, when we are in the thick of a spiritual battle, when we are the object of attack, plead less and claim more, on the ground of the blood of the Lord Jesus. We do not need to ask God to give us victory, but claim His victory to be manifested in us.

While the we do not have to beg for help, we do have to thankfully appropriate that which is already his in Christ, for Hebrews 10:38 tells us, “And my righteous ones will live by faith. But I will take no pleasure in anyone who turns away.”

God has already provided all that we need, it is up to us to appropriate by faith those promises as it says in Philippians 1:6, “And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we learned on the Trail of Help that it is God who is our helper, and that help has already been provided to us. It is now our responsibility to appropriate that help in our lives on a daily basis.

Tomorrow we will move onto our next trail, which is the Trail of Cultivation. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 294 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 14th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of The Process of Discipleship.  Today we will explore a very important aspect of our overall trek, and that is the Trail of Rest.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. After several weeks of warmer than normal weather, it looks like this next week will be a bit cooler, especially since we will be farther north at The Big House for the next couple of weeks. As I mentioned, when we left from there the last time, the furnace has to be replaced due to a crack in the heat exchanger. Fortunately, the new furnace will be installed early this next week, so we should not be very many days without the furnace. All of the bedrooms do have gas inserts in them, and the kitchen/eating area has a separate large floor furnace. So, the house will not be without sources of heat. These situations are part of life, things wear out and break down, and we need to be prepared for these contingencies. In the same way, to make sure that our body, mind, and soul do not wear out prematurely, we need to exercise, eat properly, continue learning, and invest time in meditation and prayer. One very important area that I need to get better at is investing the proper time for sleep, rest, and relaxation.

As we head out on our hike for today, let us explore the very important Trail of Rest. This is the 15th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

To become more and more like the Master Christ requires a significant amount of focus on discipleship, which we explored during the past two days.  Remember, first we must die to self, then be diligent in our growth, so that we can produce an abundant harvest, which will allow us to use that harvest to feed others that hunger and thirst for God’s justice. This process may appear to be exhausting. What this scenario of discipleship does not take into account is that God has already provided us with rest through this process.

An analogy that is used in Hebrews 3-4 is the comparison that the nation of Israel who disobeyed God when they refused to enter The Promise Land, which is referred to as God’s rest for them. The nation refused to listen to Moses and forfeited the rest for 40 years. Now someone greater than Moses is here, which is Christ. In Hebrews 3:3-4 it explains this, “But Jesus deserves far more glory than Moses, just as a person who builds a house deserves more praise than the house itself. For every house has a builder, but the one who built everything is God.”

What Moses and Joshua were unable to do was completely fulfilled in Christ. Hebrews 4:8-11 explains this, “Now if Joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest, God would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come. So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest. But if we disobey God, as the people of Israel did, we will fall.”

When we are obedient to the master, we will find rest in Him. We do not need to carry the burden of discipleship on us. To revisit a snippet of Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Christ tells us how to obtain the rest that we need as His disciple in Matthew [11:28]-29, “Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

When we view our work and ministry as a burden to be endured, we will never find rest and peace in it, and we will grow weak and weary. When we are disobedient to God’s precepts in His Word, then even our “good” actions in other areas of life will become drudgery for us.

We certainly do need to make sure that we get the proper amount of sleep, this is vitally important. Sometimes we also just need to unplug from our daily tasks and plug into God for recharging as our master did in Luke 5:16, “But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer.”

We also need to take the time to rest in God and his promises as described in one of my favorite passages Isaiah [40:28]-31,

Have you never heard?

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we learned the vital importance of obedience and plugging into God on the Trail of Rest. There are two factors for our rest to be complete. First, we are to be obedient to His Word, and second we need to put our trust in God for the strength that we need. When we do this, we will be able to carry on effectively every day on our Trek of Life. Following these two important factors will allow us to find rest for our souls, and once we have rested, we will find new strength to carry on. Tomorrow we will move onto our next trail which is the Trail of Help. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 293 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 13th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Discipleship. Today we will explore a related trail which will help us to put practical content into what we explored yesterday as we hike the Trail of The Process of Discipleship.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy.

As we continue on each trial of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of the days of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. If all goes according to plan, we should be heading to The Big House on the day this episode releases. We hope to get a lot more renovation work completed while we are in Marietta this time.

Paula should be back from her visit with Aunt Pauline late Friday. It has been a great visit for her, and we are certainly glad that she made the choice to invest the time with her.

Speaking of investing time, as we head out for our hike, today we want to discover how best to invest our time in the process of becoming a disciple of Christ. As with every activity that we integrate into our lives, let’s change our mentality from spending time to investing time. When we invest time, it has a return on it, just like a monetary investment. The difference is when we invest time, it can have an eternal return that is part of living our legacy each day. Our trail for today is the Trail of The Process of Discipleship as we learn the process to become an effective disciple. This is the 14th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

One of the best analogies of the process of discipleship is found in the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8:15 where it says, “And the seeds that fell on the good soil represent honest, good-hearted people who hear God’s word, cling to it, and patiently produce a huge harvest.” It shows a distinct process of growth through patience.  A parallel passage to this which gives us an analogy of return is Mark 4:8, “Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they sprouted, grew, and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted!” There is a theme throughout the Bible of what it takes for solid growth that produces a good return.  It is integral to the process of discipleship if it is to be long lasting. A farmer completely understands that concept that is also mentioned in James 5:7, “Dear brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the Lord’s return. Consider the farmers who patiently wait for the rains in the fall and in the spring. They eagerly look for the valuable harvest to ripen.”

Within our lives, it has been a long season of growth from when the seed fell on the fertile soil of our hearts, sprouted, grew and is now producing an abundant harvest in our lives that is nourishing others. So many Christ followers only get to the 2nd or 3rd stage in this life process toward discipleship. If you are just growing and not producing an abundant harvest, then you will never be able to reach the level where you can feed others.

One important aspect that is missed by many Christ followers is that before the plant sprouts and grows, the original seed must die to bring out a new abundant harvest. As Christ was approaching His crucifixion and death, He knew that He must die to bring new life. John 12:24-25, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity.”

To make sure that His closest disciples understood the Process of Discipleship, Christ provides further explanation in Mark 8:34-37, “Then, calling the crowd to join his disciples, he said, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”

When the believer takes up his cross through the process of discipleship, the process of death begins to set in. The disciple finds himself a seed sown by the Son, planted in a home, office, shop, hospital, church, or online social media, as their place of ministry. Whatever or wherever it is, through the process of discipleship, there will be the death from which resurrection life follows.

We need to enter deeply into the truth that Christ could not enter into the glory of heaven until He had first given Himself over to death. This great truth will help us to understand how in our life and in our fellowship with Christ, we have to first surrender ourselves, every day, to die to sin and self. It is then we can abide in the unbroken fellowship of discipleship with our crucified and risen Lord.

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we learned the precise path that must be taken on the Trail of The Process of Discipleship. Once we have fallen on the fertile soil of God’s Word, we must die to self so that we can grow, produce an abundant harvest, and will be used to feed those who hunger and thirst for God’s justice. We must be patient through this process because it requires the proper nutrients, care, weeding, and most importantly, time. There is no shortcut to the process of discipleship. Tomorrow we will move onto our next trail, which is the Trail of Rest. Throughout the process of discipleship, which will last our entire lives, there are times for rest. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person, so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 292 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 12th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of The Cross. Today we will explore a trail that we should seek after in many areas of our lives and that is Trail of Discipleship.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy.  As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. I have been able to stay focused this week on the tasks that need to be completed, so we are able to accomplish a good bit. AT&T cell coverage where Paula is in Fort Myers is nearly non-existent. Although phone calls can be made, the signal is certainly not strong enough to use as a computer hot-spot. I have been able to pick up the required daily duties that Paula provides for our client’s, so we are able to cover our duties as she is away.

Paula’s visit with her Aunt Pauline is going well, and they are finalizing the details needed for when God takes Aunt Pauline home whether it is soon or months away. Paula is her executor, and although they had all the planning and paperwork completed several years ago, it is best to recheck to make sure everyone is prepared and nothing has changed.

As we head out on our hike for today, it is necessary that we are also prepared for our daily trek. Many times we can learn from those that have traveled this path before. This is referred to as being a disciple of a master. Our trail for today is the Trail of Discipleship as we learn from the ultimate master, Jesus Christ. This is the 13th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

When we think of being a disciple of someone, it evokes the concept of learning. We are the student or the apprentice of someone who is a master in their craft or knowledge. As a Christ follower, we should desire to be a disciple of Christ. While the word disciple in my mind creates a positive image, the same root word discipline does not. How about you? Do these two words bring two different concepts in your mind? I like to think of myself as a disciplined person, but the thought of being disciplined by someone else does not give me the same sense.

Let’s explore what Biblical discipleship means. A disciple is one who first maintains the fellowship of the cross, which results in fellowship with his Lord or Master, which is discipleship. Christ is the master, but the cross is needed to clear the way for Him. It was because of the cross that He also became our master.

As a true master would, in spiritual progress Christ never pushes. He gently leads us step by step both in word and deed. We struggle and fail through our self-effort, which sets up a yearning and desire to overcome the times of failure in our lives. We learn from our master by observing Him as Hebrews 12:2 tells us, “We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.”

The more we keep our eyes and mind on our champion, in time we see the scriptural facts of deliverance in the cross, which is our identification in Him. In turn, this produces the required hunger and desire to obtain the victory over self to enter into that freedom, freedom for fellowship with our risen Master, who initiates and perfects our faith. If we desire to become like the Master, then we must spend time observing Him and learning from Him.

As a disciple or apprentice, there are certain practices that we must become proficient at so that they become integrated into the very fabric of our lives.  Christ tells us in Luke 9:23 what the initial requirements are “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” Are you willing to give up your life to become like the Master?

When the believer begins to really see the cross for what it is—a place of death, he is inclined to hesitate about choosing such fellowship. Our Lord Jesus understands this well, but there is no other way since that is the manner in which He finished the work on our behalf. So He simply allows our needs to continue their relentless pressure until we finally bend to His inevitable way of the cross. We need to understand the Master is not asking us to do anything that He did not do. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame.

As we begin to glory in the cross, our very own freedom is awakened from all that enslaves, from all that would keep us from fellowship with our risen Lord.   Our shackles fall from us, and we are set free from the treadmill of sin that so many believers find themselves chained to. As we begin to take up our cross, our liberation, our freedom from God, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ, begins to become evident in our lives. In most circumstances, a child must come of certain age in order to draw proceeds from a trust fund. In the same manner, as we become more like our Master, the personally finished work held in trust for us so long patiently begins to be released by the Holy Spirit as we begin to evidence God’s image in our daily lives. Talk about your trust funds. There is no better investment.

How do we grow as a disciple or apprentice of the Master? How do we obtain this coveted freedom that we all desire? Jesus gives us the answer in John 8:31-32, “Jesus said to the people who believed in him,’You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we learned what is required to become and start growing as a disciple on the Trail of Discipleship. We must keep our eyes and our mind on the Master, emulating Him and learning from Him. We must become like Him.

Tomorrow we will continue on a parallel trail as we hike on the Trail of the Process of Discipleship, which will provide us with some practical advice about the process of becoming more like the Master. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person, so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 291 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 11th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Self-Denial. Today we will focus on one of the most important trails which is the Trail of The Cross.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Paula had a long, but pleasant trip to Fort Myers on Tuesday to visit Aunt Pauline. Her aunt is very weak but is still living by herself. She has always been a very strong-willed person, but we are not sure how many more days on earth that God may grant to her. We are glad that our work situation and lifestyle allows for Paula to go and visit her on short notice. I was left to hold down the fort and have more work to do than hours in the day, so it was prudent that I remained in Charlotte although I would have liked to go. Paula is due back Friday night, and then we head to Marietta Ohio early on Saturday. We delayed returning to The Big House by a day so Paula could spend another day with Aunt Pauline.

As we move up the trail on our hike today, we are on the Trail of The Cross. The cross is where we gain our identity in Christ and the path to bring our image in line with God’s image. Until we learn how our lives as believers are completely integrated with Christ through the cross, we will have difficulty growing to maturity spiritually. This is the 12th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

Understanding and appropriating the facts of the cross proves to be one of the most difficult and trying of all phases for the growing believer. Our Lord holds His most vital and best things in store for those who desire to grow into a mature faith, for those who hunger and thirst for His very best as it is provided through our Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 5:6 tells us, “God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.” The believer’s understanding of the two aspects of the cross gives the key to both spiritual growth and life-giving service.

The cross is the starting point from which all Godly living must grow. We shall never know the experience of Christ’s victory in our lives until we are prepared to put our faith in His victory at the cross as the solution for our personal victory today.

There is no victory for us which was not first His. What we are to experience He purchased, and what He purchased for us we ought to experience. The beginning of the life of holiness is faith in the crucified Christ which sees more than His substitutionary work. It is a faith which sees yourself identified with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.

As our Substitute, He went to the cross alone, without us, to pay the penalty of our sins. As our Representative, He took us with Him to the cross, and there, in the sight of God, we all died together with Christ. We may be forgiven because He died in our stead. We may be delivered because we died with Him.  Through the crucifixion of the old man with Christ the believer has been made dead unto sin. He has been completely freed from sin’s power. He has been taken beyond sin’s grip, and the claim of sin upon him has been nullified. In our lives, the shackles of sin have been completely destroyed.

We are not left to deal with the old life ourselves. It has been dealt with by Christ on the cross. This is the fact which must be known since on that fact is built the New Testament principle and doctrine of holiness. In other words, the cross is as much the foundation for our spiritual growth as it was for us being made righteous in God’s sight. Both gifts spring from the same work and are two aspects of the same salvation.

Now, as long as the believer does not know this dual aspect of his salvation, the best he can do is seek to handle his sins through confession, which is after the damage has been done! 1 John 1:9 is clear that we are made clean, even when we do sin, “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.” This takes care of the penalty of our sins but not the source. Is it not time we allowed the Holy Spirit to get at the source and cut off this stream of sins before they are committed? Is this not infinitely better than the wreckage caused by sin even though confessed? When believers get sick and tired of spinning year after year in a spiritual squirrel cage—sinning, confessing, but then sinning again—they will be ready for God’s answer to the source of sin, which is death to self, brought forth from the completed work of the cross.

Our understanding of the finished work of our death to sin, in Christ at the cross, is God’s one way of deliverance—there is no other way because that is the way He did it. We learned not to add to a finished work in the matter of our salvation, and now we must learn not to add to the finished work of freedom from the shackles of sin. We will be freed when we enter His prepared freedom—there is no other. Romans 6:14 is clear, “Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.”

God has taken the shackles of sin off, let us not put them back on. We need to accept the power of the cross by faith  to live as Paul encouraged the church of the Galatians 5:13, “For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have discovered that we have been set free on the Trail of The Cross. We must understand that the same power that saved us is the power we have available to live right before God as we grow spiritually to be in His image. Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Discipleship that will lead us along our trek of spiritual growth. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person, so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 290 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 10th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Self. Today we will expand on yesterday’s trail, as we hike the Trail of Self-Denial.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. It has been a good week for work progress so far, and we have already completed several tasks that have been in the queue for a while and are making progress on others.

In a somewhat unexpected event, Paula headed to Fort Myers, Florida early Tuesday morning to spend a couple of days with her Aunt Pauline. She is not doing well, and it may be the last time she will be able to visit her. It’s a 12-hour drive, so it makes for a long trip to take alone. But, we both agreed that it would be best if I stayed and focused on our workload. Plus, it would be difficult to make arrangements on short notice for Paula’s mom who lives with us.

As we move from the Trail of Self, it is time now to hike a parallel trail called the Trail of Self-Denial. One of the most difficult tasks that we have in our lives is to deny ourselves those things which we crave. That could be food, drink, sex, power, or anything else that we struggle to overcome. Self-denial usually will not allow lasting victory through the struggles in our life because it is based on self. We established yesterday that left to ourselves, we will usually choose self over service to others or God. On our hike today, we will focus on why it requires a real change of heart and mind to grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and certainly spiritually.

This is the 11th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

Remember that I have mentioned several times previously that the word for heart and mind is used interchangeably within God’s Word. To keep it simple, I will refer to the mind throughout this hike today.

Until we are willing to change our thinking by what we allow going into our minds about ourselves and our commitment to God, we will continue on the roller coaster of spiritual chaos. Self-denial will never work long-term unless we change the way we think. We change the way we think by what we permit through the filters of our mind. This is why diets rarely work and addicts have such a difficult time breaking free from the chains that bind them. Although you may desire to be free, until and unless you see yourself as being completely free in your mind, you will eventually slip back into your old mindset.

In order to grow spiritually, you have to be convinced in your mind that it all happened at the cross of Christ. Your sins were paid for. Your sinfulness was dealt with. Both by the ultimate act, which is death. As Christ called out as he gave up His life, “It is finished.” You have already received the benefits of the work of the cross simply by grasping this truth and believing the finished work of the cross completely in your mind.

So the question is, “How is this applied to our lives?” First, through the Word, we find out what God did about our problem. Second, as we become thoroughly convinced in our minds of the fact then begin to understand it clearly, we are able to agree and understand this truth. Third, as we exercise faith in God’s fact, or in other words become fully convinced in our minds, we begin to receive the benefits of that finished work in our experiences of daily life. It was true of our faith in Christ for salvation, and it is true in the matter of our freedom from the slavery of the self-life. Then it no longer becomes denying ourselves but fully comprehending that Christ paid it all.

You may be asking, “How can you have this mindset change?” The Apostle Paul gives us the answer in Romans 12:1-2, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Changing the way you think is such a powerful concept. We do this by filtering out the impurities of this world through God’s Word so that what actually is filtered into our minds is pure and right.

An analogy to help us grasp this concept that I think most of us are familiar with is the Brita filter that you may have in a pitcher or faucet in your home. As the water, that may not be completely pure, goes through the filter, it traps all of the impurities and only allows pure water to pass through. In the same way, as we read, study, and meditate on God’s Word, it becomes the filter of our minds so that only true and right things pass through. This is best described in Philippians 4:8, “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.”

As we learn to fix our minds on the finished work of the cross of Christ, the Holy Spirit will begin to faithfully and effectively apply that finished work of the cross to the self-life. This will allow our self-life to be held in the place of death, resulting in the truth of Galatians 2:20, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have explored the truths on the Trail of Self-Denial. We have come to understand that the only way to have lasting spiritual growth is to change the way we think through changing what we allow to pass into our minds. Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of The Cross where our entire identity in God is based. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 289 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 9th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Consecration. Today our hike takes us to the Trail of Self.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were able to take a break Sunday afternoon for a 4-mile walk as the weather was sunny and pleasant. Paula and I always enjoy our times of walking, as it spurs great conversations covering many aspects of our lives. Unless our plans change, we are heading back up to The Big House on Friday evening for a little over two weeks. We hope to get up there while the daffodils are still in bloom as we have missed seeing them in bloom the past couple of years. The daffodils come from ones that were around the property which my Granny planted, so they are special to us.

It is time to head out on our hike for today on the Trail of Self. This is a difficult trail because although we like to think of ourselves as being selfless, the contrary is true. Most of the thoughts that we have and the decisions that we make are centered on how we are going to benefit. Very few people, if any, are purely selfless in the decisions that they make. On our hike today, let us learn how to change our thinking about self when it comes to our relationship to God. This is the 10th of 18 trails which makes up the trek we call…

One of the most important factors in Christian growth is the Holy Spirit’s revelation of the self-life to the believer. Self is the fleshly, carnal life of nature, the life of the first Adam described in Ephesians 2:1, “Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins.” Even the Apostle Paul in the height of his ministry understood how difficult it is for us not to be a selfish person when he wrote Romans 7:18, “And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t.”  Nowhere do spiritual principles mean more than here. Plato, with his “know thyself,” was more right than he knew but still only half right. Paul, in Galatians 2:20 says “…it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me…” and was 100% right!

In order for you to get beyond just knowing about the Lord Jesus and enter into a consistent and growing personal knowledge of and fellowship with Him, you must first come to know yourself. This is more than just introspection. It is the Holy Spirit guiding and teaching us through God’s Word and trusted mentors.

Here are a few items that we must learn first to grow from self-centered to Christ-centered:

We must continually be learning about ourselves. Self-revelation precedes divine revelation—that is a principle for both spiritual birth and spiritual growth. As a believer, if you are going through struggle and failure, it is very possible that you are being carefully and lovingly handled by his Lord in a very personal way. You are being taken through the experience (which sometimes lasts for years) of self-revelation and into death to your self so that you can be shaped into the image of God. As the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians 3:10-11, “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!”

God sometimes works in our life by paradox. Success comes through failure; victory comes through defeat; and yes, even life springs out of death. That is death to self.  The only element in the believer’s life that crumbles away is that which has to go anyway. The new life can never be harmed or affected. Self will never cast out self.

Think of the analogy of the potter’s wheel. You start as a lump of clay and the master potter removes all the “self-parts” that are not to be part of the finished vessel. Another analogy is to think of the master goldsmith, by intense heat the gold is refined by removing all the dross that is not pure gold. Through God’s Spirit and His Word, He is the master potter and goldsmith working in our lives. So often the means utilized by the Spirit is adversity because most of the time we will not come to our sense of need until we feel the potter’s sculpting tools or the refiner’s fire.

We like to quote the verses Romans 8:28-29 as if God is going to work everything out for what we think is good, but let’s look at those verses again. The verses read, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.” In these verses, God is working everything out for our good according to His purpose for us and His purpose for us is to make us become like His Son. Does that give these verses a bit of a different perspective to you? In order to become like His Son, we must have purged from our lives everything that is not in the image of God. That is difficult for all of us. Fortunately, it is not up to us to make that change, but Christ living in us that will. What is impossible with self is possible with God.

Someone has rightly said, “There are many ‘separated from the world’ Christians who are not ‘separated from themselves’ Christians.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have explored the truths about self that are found on the Trail of Self. Through God’s Holy Spirit and His Word, we can trim away self to be the appropriate vessel that God has destined us to be. We are created in God’s image through this process. His image will shine through who we are. This is a gradual process as we grow and mature in our faith.

Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Self-Denial, where we will come to understand that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 288 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 7th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Identification. Today our hike takes us to the Trail of Consecration.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trial of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. We were able to make some good progress over the weekend, but I also felt the need to have some downtime to relax and recharge a bit. It has always been difficult for me to set aside the time to recharge. There is always so much to do, and I am energized by most of the projects that we are involved in. As I grow older and wiser, I do realize that all my activities, when consecrated to God, are worthwhile and beneficial. The times of rest and reflection are as important as the times of focus and pursuit.

Let us head out on the hike for today on the Trail of Consecration. The word consecration is not a word that is used much outside of religious circles but it means to be set apart for God. As we hike today, let us learn about this word and set this entire trek apart for God. This is the 9th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

As we start out on today’s hike, we have to realize and understand that we do not have the capability to change other people in any aspects of life, and we certainly cannot force someone to be consecrated to God. It might be good to stress several points just here:

Hebrews 6:1 – “Therefore let us move beyond the elementary teachings about Christ and be taken forward to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God…”

This subject of consecration seems to be badly misunderstood by so many Christ followers. Many, especially those who are young in the Lord, have been victimized time and time again in this matter of surrender or commitment. The club most commonly used is “The Lord Jesus gave His all for you, now the least you can do is give your all for Him!” The believer is exhorted and pressured to consecrate, surrender, and commit his life to Christ on the basis of his love and gratitude for what has been done on his behalf – the crucifixion of Christ. It is like telling a toddler who has recently learned to walk that they are now expected to run a marathon race. Training for a marathon is a very slow and gradual process. It takes time, practice, proper eating, proper rest, and so much more. A toddler would not have the understanding, desire, or capability to do so.

As growing Christians, it takes time for us to see the necessity of going beyond the love motive to the life motive. We must grow so that our lives are lived for something beyond ourselves. Philippians 1:21 says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” Our consecration, surrender, or commitment will never last if we are just responding to outside pressures to be consecrated to God. It must be based on our recognition of our need for God to work through us, which will provide us the internal desire to make it happen. This desire is fueled by our love for God to do His will in all things. Yielding to God on any different basis will simply amount to our trying to live for Him without the strength to do so.

Romans 12:1 explains what God expects, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Until we have done this, there is nothing else we can do.  This passage comes after Romans 6, which we explored yesterday, where we learned that we are crucified with Christ. There is a reason for this order—crucifixion comes before consecration. An uncrucified self refuses to be consecrated. This is why so many people with all sincerity are always recommitting themselves to God with little lasting change.

A careful study of all the letters of the Apostle Paul will show that they are written on the basis of the identification truths that we explored yesterday in Romans 6. Remember that we are identified with Christ in His Crucifixion, Burial, Resurrection, and Ascension in that order. The cross is the focal point of Romans 6 — the fact that God assigns our old fallen Adam-life to the cross where it died from God’s perspective. Our new life is in Christ and our consecration, or setting apart, to God is summarized in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we have discovered the treasure that is found on the Trail of Consecration. If we desire to be “set apart” for God, then we must fully grasp the truths found in Galatians [2:20]. Just like our trek of life each day on our Wisdom-Trek, the consecration of ourselves to God is a gradual process as we grow and mature in our faith. Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Self, and I think most of us realize that “self” is a difficult trail to conquer. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!

Thank you for joining us for our 7 days a week, 7 minutes of wisdom podcast. This is Day 287 of our trek. Yesterday we hiked on the 7th trail of this trek, which was the Trail of Appropriation. Today our hike takes us to the Trail of Identification.

There is a total of 18 trails on the trek we call the Principles of Spiritual Growth, which is adapted from a short book written by Miles J. Stanford. These practical lessons were instrumental in my spiritual growth as a young man seeking to create and live my legacy. As we continue on each trail of our overall trek, I trust that you will also find this information valuable in your own life, regardless of where you happen to be on your faith trek. Each of the trails that we hike builds on the previous one, so if you miss any of our Wisdom-Trek, please go to Wisdom-Trek.com to listen to them and read the daily journal.

We are recording our podcast from our studio at Home2 in Charlotte, North Carolina. This weekend is focused on finalizing some company tax work and preparing returns for family members. Once we finish those up, we will be able to focus on our personal return. We did make further progress on business planning projects that we set aside because of our heavy workload.

For so many of us, our identity of who we are is tied to the work that we do. I fall victim to this thinking and have to continually remind myself that we should consider our work as the platform for which we create and live our legacy. The positive impact that we have on others’ lives is most important. With that, we did take a break from our work for a great nephew’s birthday party on Saturday, and we do plan to worship with our local congregation at church on Sunday. We may also get outdoors on Sunday for a nice long walk.

As we consider our identity, as Christ followers, our identity should be in Christ, which is why today on our hike on the Trail of Identification we will explore the various aspects of how we are to identify with Christ. This will give us a focus of what to consider and how this applies to our spiritual lives. This is the 8th of 18 trails, which makes up the trek we call…

As we head out on our hike for today, our direction moves from the core truths of our new birth in Christ to the discovery of what we would call the growth truths. The primary passage to understand our identification with Christ is Romans 6. We will dig for the nuggets of wisdom that are found in that passage.

The very foundation of Christianity is Christ in us. The Christian life is Christ living His life in and through the believer. The life of Christ is reproduced in us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is a new life with new relationships. When Christ resided in a physical body while on earth, he was restricted by the limitations of that physical body. This is why after his ascension into heaven he sent the Spirit of Truth that could reside in all believers at once, allowing His impact to be much greater found in John 16:13-14, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.”

Our identification with Christ is such a crucial element for a believer. Today we will barely scratch the surface of what this means. There are four essential ways that we have our identification in Christ. Those are:

While I could write a lot about each of these points, all four of these points are covered in Romans 6:1-11, so I will read it first and then wrap it up with a few comments,

Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was. 6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. 7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. 9 We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.10 When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that he lives, he lives for the glory of God. 11 So you also should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin and alive to God through Christ Jesus.

There is a lot that is contained in these 11 verses. It would do us all well to meditate on all that is there. But, let’s look briefly at the four points.

All of our needs as sinners have been fully provided for in the cross of Jesus. Christ paid our sin debt. He died to set us free from our spiritual death. When Christ died, we died with Him. We are identified with His death. When did we die to sin? Romans 6:2 is past tense. We died to sin when we put our faith in Christ as our personal Savior.

We who have died with Christ have also been buried with Christ. Our burial with Christ is beautifully pictured in the ordinance of baptism. In Romans 6:4, the baptism that is referred to here is not water baptism. It is the baptism of the Holy Spirit by which we were made part of the body of Christ. Water baptism is a sign or symbol of that, but the essential thing here is the baptism of the Spirit. We become united with Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Believers have been resurrected to new life with Christ. Because of our co-resurrection with Christ we walk in a new kind of life. Our relationship to Christ is symbolized by the union of marriage in scripture. By His death, we were liberated, and by the co-resurrection, we produce righteousness unto God. Romans 6:5 says that “Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.”

God’s solution to our sin problem was to put us to death with Christ. He put us in the grave with Christ to remove us from the old realm in which we operated. He raised us out of the grave with Christ to bring us into a new kind of life. We have been co-crucified, co-buried and co-resurrected with Christ in order to walk in the newness of life with Christ. Christ lives His life in us.

On our trek Principles for Spiritual Growth, today we just barely scratched the surface of the riches that are found on the Trail of Identification. For today it is sufficient that we grasp that since we are identified with Christ, we should no longer act as if we are not.

Tomorrow we will begin a new hike on the Trail of Consecration. Every trail that we hike will help us to create and live our legacy each day. So, encourage your friends and family to join us, and then come along tomorrow for another day of our Wisdom-Trek, Creating a Legacy.

That will finish our podcast for today. As you enjoy your daily dose of wisdom, we ask you to help us grow Wisdom-Trek by sharing with your family and friends through email, Facebook, Twitter, or in person so they can come along with us each day.

Thank you for allowing me to be your guide, mentor, and most of all your friend as I serve you through the Wisdom-Trek podcast and journal each day.

As we take this trek together, let us always:

This is Guthrie Chamberlain reminding you to Keep Moving Forward, Enjoy Your Journey, and Create a Great Day Every Day! See you tomorrow!