[DOWNLOAD] "Spiritual Living for Ministers" by Truman Scott * Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Spiritual Living for Ministers
- Author : Truman Scott
- Release Date : January 05, 2012
- Genre: Christianity,Books,Religion & Spirituality,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 701 KB
Description
It was the Apostle Paul’s belief there was a God who had created within every man a longing, a hope, a groping for experiencing the intimate presence of his Creator God. He affirmed that belief in a lecture to scholarly Athenians (cf. Acts 17:27). Augustine, the noted theologian in the fifth century, believed that a man could not be happy until he had filled the God-created vacuum within himself, filling it with God. And so, every generation of man has hungered for the presence of God, for a deep sense of intimacy with his Maker.
The multitude of books and lectures confirm that many have pondered over the question of spirituality. How to define it? How to achieve it? How to drink deeply of it? How to share it? Few have felt confident enough with their own spirituality to tell others how or where to find it. It could even seem arrogant for one to pretend he has arrived at such a level of spirituality to show others the way to the presence of God. Yet, doesn’t the longing of the ages demand that if anyone has discovered even a piece of the journey he should share it with others who, like him, are groping to find God? Oswald Chambers tried to do this in his book, My Upmost for His Highest. Likewise, E.W. McMillon aimed at such a noble goal in his book, The Spiritual Life of A Minister. Such was the mission of Jesus, to show us the Father.
Since the early years of my ministry, thus over fifty years ago, I have hungered constantly to have a more meaningfully felt, a more convincing certainty, and a more unbroken sense of being close to the presence of God. I know the agony of feeling distant from God, even when my life was being given happily in His service. I know the ecstasy of being surely in the presence of God, short-lived as it sometimes was. I know the hours of study and reading, of listening to others speaking on their efforts to know God, and of pushing hard on the doors of heaven. I know the sudden recognition that being active in ministry is not a substitute for being holy and that lasting fruits do not grow in shallow soil. From all of those hours and efforts, I accepted an invitation to teach fledgling ministers at Sunset International Bible Institute on becoming spiritual in their oncoming ministries. That assignment continued, sometimes twice a year, for a decade, to new classes of men with the same longing and groping to know God.
This study is the result of those years of urging men to deepen their spiritual lives. In those classes, students were urged to make every effort to share with others what would come from both the revealed knowledge of seeking God and the experienced confidence that God had created us to have union with Him. They were often assured that our God wanted us to seek Him and would be near to guide each step toward a life of spiritual living in His presence. I hope that what you read in this study will either encourage you in your walk toward God or will confirm that what you are doing will surely lead you to “walk with God in the cool of the evening” in the garden of your deepest longings to be spiritual in all your thoughts, feelings, and actions. God’s people will be blessed through the spiritual life you enjoy and your God will be glorified among His saints.