Building Your Herd

Going through an old journal of mine, I found this entry from November of 2008: Tozer has said, “Proper and sound teaching of the Word of God will awaken desire within the one being taught to move forward in spiritual adventure with Christ.” We study passages in the Greek to find out what they mean in English and we say, “Isn't that fine!” And that's all we do about it! Tozer says our spiritual growth comes to a screeching halt whenever we hear a spiritual truth and refuse to act on it. Maybe it's a sin we need to confess, but refuse to agree with God that it is a sin. Maybe it's some business we need to straighten out between God and ourselves, or between ourselves and others. Maybe it some act of obedience that we stubbornly refuse to perform. Refusal to act on revealed truth is a recipe for chronic discouragement! It is accepting mediocrity and stunted spiritual growth as the norm. There is an old Hindu saying that goes like this, “You who are busy learning texts and not living them are like the man counting other peoples cattle without having a single heifer of his own.” Maybe it's time for each of us to start building our own herd....one heifer at a time as we act on what the Word of God is speaking to us. May the Holy Spirit open our ears to the Word of God and then move our members to respond accordingly. Just one word of caution as you build your herd. Don't go tooting your own horn about it! Remember God owns all the cattle (Ps 50:10) Any increase is His doing not yours!