What is the goal in your Christian life? If you really love the Lord, then it must be to achieve His beautiful heart and enter New Jerusalem. Now check your progress towards the goal by answering the following three questions.
1. Do you stick to achieving your goal unchangingly?
Heading for a certain goal, you may wonder if you are on the right path towards it. Suppose you run in a marathon. At first you started for the finish line but if you are distracted in the middle then it becomes hard for you to win the race.
In the course of our spiritual race, if we are distracted and diverted onto a wrong track, we can't get to our goal quickly. We must see, hear, and think of only things that belong to spirit with strong determination. In other words, we must study the Word of God, listen to sermons, and pray in church instead of watching TV and seeking self-satisfaction or worldly pleasures.
You may have set your goal in spirit and say you are heading for it, but you must now check if you haven't diverted your attention from spiritual things to the worldly entertainment and friends. You always have to check it because since Adam's fall the enemy devil and Satan has relentlessly tried to tempt people to grab the worldly things.
They lead people to set their minds on things on earth whereas God says, "Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth" (Colossians 3:2).
Hence, you need to check whether you pay more attention to money, fame, power, worldly pleasure, or relationships with the opposite sex, and you have more fun gathering with worldly people than being with people in church, and you rely on the world more than God. Check them again.
2. Do you cry out in prayer without ceasing?
No matter how hard you try to keep to your goal, if you don't pray fervently, you can't be provided with strength to do it. Even if you fill your mind with the knowledge of the truth ardently, unless you cry out in prayer, you can't be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is what leads to unfruitfulness.
Only through prayer can we put the Word that we have heard in our hearts and bear its fruit with 30, 60, or 100 times. Many places in Scriptures emphasize the importance of prayer. For instance, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says, "Pray without ceasing" and 1 Peter 4:7 reads, "The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer." Many Christians, however, pray only in Sunday Services.
In order to keep faith and not to enter into temptation, any Christian must habitually pray as the Lord taught. Without praying it is very hard to keep faith and reach salvation since sin and evil are prevalent in the world today. Thus, prayer is not an option but a must-do for Christians. Without it, they can't overcome the world.
Prayer is spiritual breathing and the way to communicate with God. It is the way to know the spiritual world and enter spirit. Some of you may have worked diligently in church, however you were not praying. It can't allow for your souls to prosper. Thus, check again if you pray unceasingly and cry out in prayer with your whole heart.
3. Do you practice goodness and how much?
If you have worked hard towards your goal while praying fervently, then check how much goodness you have practiced in your life. Many believers try to do no evil and cast away sins to gain sanctification. But they tend to lack interest and efforts in doing 'good'. By doing good enthusiastically, we can make it easier to enter spirit.
Just trying not to sin passively is very different from trying to do good actively. Suppose there are two children of a mother. Both behave well, one trying not to be scolded by her and the other trying to please her. The latter may grow up better and be loved by the mother more.
That is the way we should also love God and seek Him actively and diligently for Proverbs 8:17 reads, "I love those who love me; and those who diligently seek me will find me."
When it comes to doing good, we should cultivate our hearts into goodness as well as practicing it in action. Of course, we should store up goodness by actions of giving and serving, but more importantly, in our heart-fields we should first cultivate love and a serving heart.
Thus, most importantly, we must achieve the heart itself to seek others' benefits, serve others, and sacrifice ourselves for them. Only when people around us feel comfortable and happy due to our goodness then can we say we have practiced true goodness.
Goodness entails spiritual fragrance. No matter how insignificant it may look, any act of goodness carries beautiful aroma. Yet no matter how deeply and greatly you can discuss goodness, if you don't practice it, it has no aroma. Goodness comes out not through deliberation or study but comes naturally from the heart and soon leads to action. As you practice goodness it grows. As you practice deeds of goodness at the basic level and continue to do it, you will be able to act in deeper levels of goodness. Goodness continues to grow in this way.
Note here that you must not stop at the level of being forced to do goodness based on what you have learned, or being satisfied with having practiced goodness. You must keep trying to achieve true goodness that comes from the bottom of your heart.
Now, check whether you act in goodness coercively based on your knowledge of the truth or if you like goodness itself from your heart and find it makes you happy doing good.
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Manmin News 
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