Spiritual Gifts part 195: The heavy weights that hold us down.

Spiritual Gifts Part 195: The weights that hold us down.

What is discernment?

MAT 7:16
“You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?”

JOH 15:2
“Every branch [believer] in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away [discipline]; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it [suffering for blessing] so that it may bear more fruit.”

Suffering is part of the plan of God for our life.

Once the pruning happens, I can look forward to a new season of tremendous spiritual growth, productivity and fruitfulness in my life.

This EVENT of affliction in our life, suffering for blessing, is designed by God to be the catalyst for many good things.

Several N.T. passages have this string of growth by stages. Each time the growth results from some form of suffering or affliction.

The plan of God, as you allow it to unfold, it has its own power in residence to do all this!
The power is pre-packaged, progressive, and perfect.

The spiritual truth of this parable centers on the different ways that different people respond when the word of God meets the hurdles of life.

katecho
 
It is the PRESENT tense, active voice, indicative mood.

to continue to believe, with the implication of acting in accordance with such belief - 'to continue to believe and practice, to continue to follow.'

Emphatic:
1. "to hold fast or back," 2. "to occupy spatially," 3. "to occupy legally," "to possess." A nautical sense is "to steer toward" or "land at."

There is the step or decision point of hearing and believing the Gospel.

Then there is the step or decision point of handling affliction and persecution and exercising faith in the word of God.

Then there is the step or decision point of facing worries and riches and pleasures.

At every step, at every cross roads, there is a hurdle. Sometimes it is affliction. Other times it is worry. Or riches. Or pleasure.

His great desire is that we leap over each and every one by believing His promises about what awaits on the other side of that hurdle.

PSA 18:29
For by You I can run upon a troop;
And by my God I can leap over a wall.

But slowly but surely we recognize it not to be a prize but a Person.

ogkos
denotes "a bulk or mass";
hence, metaphorically, "an encumbrance, weight,"

In connection with the metaphor of the contestant, ogkos
has the sense of the weight which he must put off to be able to attain his goal unhampered.

Weights are not necessarily or even primarily external.
 
They are first of all in the heart.

The weights are hindering our advance in the growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.