Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Stepping Stones: Is Your Growth Optional?

Transformational Tip
Few men and women of God have become extraordinary people of faith without the influence of mentors. A mentor is one who takes responsibility for the care and, especially, growth…physical, psychological, emotional, relational, academic, and spiritual…of another. For growth to happen, commitment is required from both the teacher and the student.
I have been privileged to have had many mentors throughout my spiritual life and walk. In each stage of my progressing in maturity from newly born again to present, God brought new and specific mentors who had unique gifts that the previous mentor did not have. God has grown in me the hunger to desire a double portion of those positive attributes of my mentors. This desire, I believe, is sorely missing amongst many today. I fail to see the hunger for many who could be used greatly in the Kingdom. Instead, the cares of this world distract them. It is an attitude of a la carte vs. an attitude of pressing in to the full measure of what God might have for them. To maximize mentoring, you need to be humble, to be all in.

Today, ask God if there is someone He would have you mentor or be mentored by. Ask yourself these questions: Who are the people of God He has placed in your life? Are you learning from them? Are you seeking a double portion of their anointing? What prevents you from gaining from their wisdom and experience? God may have brought them into your life to prepare you to be a man or woman of God…to train you to be a mentor. However, there is a time of training and waiting to prove out your own faith. Click here to share with the Stepping Stones community your thoughts and experiences regarding spiritual mentoring.

Prayer
Dear Father God, I thank You Father for the men you have brought into my life as mentors. I pray for wisdom, patience, biblical values and ethics, integrity, and everything spiritual mentors need, to be effective and carry out their responsibilities in a manner that is pleasing to You and beneficial for those being mentored. I pray for Your special touch on Christian mentors, and for their protection from all harm and evil. Thank You, God. In the name of the perfect mentor, Jesus; and all God’s children said – AMEN!

The Truth
...Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.
Zechariah 8:23
Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.
Titus 2:3-5
The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses,
entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
2 Tim. 2:2