November 12, 202

I often hear people talk about a person or an experience as Spiritual. Songs which are particularly emotion driven are referred to as spirituals. And of course many Christians, myself included,  want to be more Spiritual. As we ask how to achieve this we often seek out experiences, places, and books which stir something inside of us, which make us feel a certain way. What we don’t want is to be unspiritual. However we are confused about what it means to be Spiritual or unspiritual. Spiritual is not something you feel (what you feel is called emotional) instead it’s what you do. Following is a list of things that are called unspiritual notice that many of them are highly driven by feeling rather that truth.

Unspiritual

• Division, jealousy, and strife are not Spiritual I Cor 3:1
• Doing that which hurts Christ’s Church is not Spiritual I Cor 3:16
• Associating with evil is not Spiritual I Cor 6:19
• Misrepresenting Jesus is not Spiritual I Cor 12:3
• Pursuing the desires of the flesh is not Spiritual Gal 5:16
• Bitterness, anger, wrath, clamour, slander, malice, are all not Spiritual Eph 4:30-32
• Causing division of the Lords Church is not Spiritual Jude 19

When we try to determine what is Spiritual and how to be more Spiritual we need to make sure that we are using the right means of measuring Spirituality. The right means is not our own emotional response to a thing but what God through the Holy Spirit says about it in the Bible which He inspired.

     On another occasion we will consider a similar positive list of what behaviours and characteristics the Bible calls Spiritual. 

~ Kevin Cleary

Note: There are other actions and behaviours that could be added to the list because they are directed by God but I wanted to restrict the list to those things mentioned in the context of the Holy Spirit’s influence.