Applying Spiritual Principles to Real World Challenges

On the front page of my dashboard, you see one of my interests as: "Applying spiritual principles to real world challenges." Well, several individuals I know who regularly read my work published on this website have asked just what does that mean and why haven't I written anything about this specific interest. They're right! I have not written specifically about this interest, a perspective that forms the core of my value system.
Stated succinctly, my value system says: "I believe that God exists and rewards those who earnestly seek, learn from and obey Him." I base this value system on three declarations from the Bible: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because 1)anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that 2) He rewards those 3) who earnestly seek Him." (Heb. 11:6) Consider the spiritual principle of learning: "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matt. 11:29). Consider the spiritual principle of obedience: "Through Him and for His name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith." (Rom. 1:5). "What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey--whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness." (Rom. 6:15-18).

So what rewards accrue to those who learn from God and obey Him? The rewards can be classified in 12 broad categories as follows:
1) New thinking, 2) Innovative thinking, 3) Creative thinking, 4) Enthusiastic thinking, 5) Recognizing value, 6) Embracing power, 7) Acquiring skills, 8) Purchasing technology, 9) Developing responsible relationships, 10) Undertaking accountable actions, 11) Establishing comprehensive commitments, 12) Engaging enterprising economics. The rewards of new, innovative, creative and enthusiastic thinking develop from a spiritual principle mentioned in Rom. 12:1-2 "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to this pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--His good, pleasing and perfect will." The rewards of value to be recognized, power to be embraced, skills to be acquired and technology to be purchased develop from the spiritual principle stated in Col. 1:9-14 "For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way; bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the Kingdom of Light. For He has rescued us from the Dominion of Darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." The spiritual principle that governs the rewards of responsible relationships, accountable actions, comprehensive commitments and enterprising economics is found in 1Thes. 5:14-24 "And we urge you brothers, warn those who are idle, encourage the timid, help the weak, be patient with everyone. Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else. Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil. May God Himself, the God of peace sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and He will do it."

Before, I go further, let me define spiritual principle. A spiritual principle is a law with its foundation in the spirit realm and its manifestation in the physical realm. Gravity, inertia, digestion, areodynamics, photosynthesis and even biogenesis are just a few such laws. The fundamental differences between spiritual principles and human techniques are that techniques work for some people, but not for everyone. Techniques can be altered, even ignored, often without significant consequence. Techniques deliver mixed results, and sometimes unanticipated results. Spiritual principles, on the other hand, operate universally. They work the same way, all the time for anyone who aligns with and adheres to them. Spiritual principles cannot be broken or altered. Live contrary to a spiritual principle and you break yourself against it. Consider gravity, for example. It's a spiritual principle. Its foundation stems from the spirit realm. It's manifestation operates in the physical realm. Align with gravity and the law blesses you always. Live contrary to this law, and you break yourself against it.

I have found the Bible to be the greatest consistent collection of spiritual principles. For almost 47 years now, I have studied the Bible, not only as a book of religion, per se, or of history, or even moral advice, though you can glean all those concepts from its pages. More importantly, in my judgment, I have studied the Bible as a source of powerful, spiritual principles that govern human life and motivate us to align with our optimal destiny. I will discuss our optimal destiny in a later article. Suffice it to say, that a specific statement of principle in the Bible succinctly describes our destiny: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, as He is pure." (1John 3:1-3).

So beginning about February of 1968, I began studying the Bible, with very specific objectives in mind: how can I learn the powerful spiritual principles revealed there and how do I apply those powerful principles to the daily challenges of life? Another way to ask this question is to ponder how I, you, or anyone else, might align ourselves with two amazing promises set forth in the Scriptures? Here are the promises: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose." That's promise number one--God, Himself, works in my behalf, no matter what the circumstances, situations, or conditions might seem to be. Here's the second promise: "For those God foreknew (replace the pronoun with your name) He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those He predestined, He also called; those He called, He also justified; those He justified, He also glorified." (Rom. 8:28-30).

As most of you know who read what I write here at AC, I was in prison in February 1968, scheduled to be released in December that year. I will not go into the details here. For that background, please read other articles I have written at AC about my criminal and prison background. I recommend the following articles:
My Trek from Crime to Contribution, parts one and two, Can an ex-con become a college professor, Can an ex-con become a professional writer, Tired of prison-- break the crime habit, Let's focus on helping criminals change.

Between February and June, I learned three powerful principles that identified the challenges I confronted, but, more importantly, also revealed the beginning of a strategy by which I could conquer those challenges. I found the first principle--a summary of my overall problem in Isa. 55:8-9 " 'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the Lord. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'" So, I learned, I do not think like God; therefore, I do not behave like God. So what's the answer? I found it in Philippians 2:5-8 "Your attitude (frame of thought) should be the same as that of Christ Jeus, Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as aman, He humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!" So then I knew that I had to surrender and sacrifice everything that defined "Me,"whoever I thought I was. Next I needed to honestly understand the barriers to surrender. I found that principle in Jeremiah 17:1,5 and 9-10 " 'Judah's sin is engraved with an iron tool, insribed with a flint point onthe tablets of their hearts and on the horns of their altars . . .' This is what the Lord says: 'Cused is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord . . .The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure, who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind to reward a man according to his conduct.'" So I learned, and had later confirmed when I read a book by Henry Brandt and Kerry L. Skinner--The Heart of the Problem--that the heart of my problems was the problem of my heart.

Armed with those three principles--1) I do not think like God; therefore, I cannot behave like God, 2) I have to learn to have the same attitude of sacrifice-centered service that Jesus had, willing to give up all that I believe myself to be in exchange for what God could make of me, 3) My own thoughts, or better still, the way that I thought, constituted my greatest barrier to the transformation I desired--I saw clearly, for the first time, the gargantuan task ahead of me.

Now, I wondered did God ever confront challenges and if He did, how did he solve them? I found the answer in Isa. 46:8-10 "Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things those of long ago. I am God, and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say I purpose will stand and I will do allthat I please." So, I learned. God plans! Therefore, I concluded, to conform my thinking to God's thinking, I had to learn how to do the following: shift my mindset from a self-centered paradigm to a God-centered paradigm, develop personal life plans in alignment with biblical principles, including whatever God's overarching plan for me. As most things worth doing, all this was much, much easier said than done. It fact, it has taken me 40 years to make it to this point--where almost all of my thoughts align with God's thoughts and His plan for my life.

So you see, that's how I began learning how to apply powerful spiritual principles to life's daily challenges. Forty years later, I have learned more and more each day, week, month and year since. So beginning with this article, I plan to write a series of articles about this topic--How to learn and align oneself with powerful spiritual principles that govern life.