Tony Evans - Life Essentials for Knowing God Better, Experiencing God Deeper, Loving God More

forKnowing GodBetter ,

Experiencing GodDeeper,

Loving GodMore

TONY EVANS

M OODY P UBLISHERS
CHICAGO

2003 by
ANTHONY T. EVANS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

All Scripture quotations, unless indicated otherwise, are taken from the New American Standard Bible , Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James Version.

Interior Design: Ragont Designs
Cover Design: Smartt Guys design
Back Cover Copy: Anne Perdicaris
Editor: Cheryl Dunlop

ISBN: 0-8024-8574-X

ISBN-13: 978-0-8024-8574-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Evans, Anthony T.
Life essentials : for knowing God better, experiencing God deeper,
loving God more / Tony Evans.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-8024-8574-X

1. Spiritual formation. I. Title.

BV4501.3.E93 2003
248.4dc22

2003015220

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This book is dedicated to the
vigilant staffs of
Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship
and
The Urban Alternative,
who work diligently to ensure
that the ministry God called me to
is executed effectively and efficiently
for His glory.

I want to say a word of thanks to my friend and editor, Philip Rawley, for his excellent help in the preparation of this manuscript; and to Greg Thornton, Cheryl Dunlop, and the rest of the team at Moody Publishers for their encouragement and quality work on this project.

O ne day I was walking through my yard with a workman who was going to cut down and remove some dead trees. I showed him one tree that I wanted him to cut down because it appeared dead to me.

Oh, sir, he said quickly. You dont need to cut this tree down. Its still alive. Then he proceeded to show me some small green buds on the tree that I had not noticed. What looked like death to me was really stunted growth. Because this tree had not been properly nurtured and developed, it appeared to have no life at all.

Countless Christians today are like that underdeveloped tree on my property. At first glance they may appear to have no spiritual life at all, but upon closer observation their problem is seen to be severely retarded development. Too many Christians are not experiencing the abundant life Jesus promised because of their lack of spiritual growth.

This book is about spiritual growth. If you have truly trusted the Lord Jesus Christ to be your Sin-bearer, and you are looking to Him alone for forgiveness and the gift of eternal life, then you have life abiding in you. What is needed now is more growth, not more life.

The problem, however, is that many Christians either dont know how spiritual growth occurs, or they are refusing to allow it to occur. My goal in this book is to motivate and educate you in the essential elements of spiritual growth, so you can grow into a mature spiritual adult, one who consistently lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

You will see the word grace appear throughout this book. This is because your spiritual development is directly tied to your understanding of and response to Gods grace. The grace that saved you is the grace that will transform you as you grow.

Spiritual growth is guaranteed to every true believer. No child of God has to remain stagnant and spiritually underdeveloped. In the pages to follow, you will discover how to cooperate with Gods grace in order to experience maximum spiritual growth.

It is my hope that this book will incite and excite you to pursue the full experience of your new life in Christ and discover the joy of being transformed into the image of Gods Son. Then you will know the blessed experience of Christ being formed in you (Galatians 4:19).

T here was a lot of activity and discussion in the Evans family in the months before the birth of our first grandson, Jackson. Between baby showers came conversations about the babys name and other details of the birth and new life we were looking forward to.

It was interesting to listen to my son-in-law, Jerry, who was already talking about the college his son would attend and what team he would play football for. He, my daughter Priscilla, and our entire family were filled with ideas and plans for the future as we waited for the arrival of this new life.

Families can look ahead with excitement to a new childs future because inherent in every birth is the hope and expectation that this baby is going to grow and develop. Once a child has been conceived and born, growth is anticipated, because thats the way God designed the human body to work. No parents I know are content simply to say, Well, we conceived a child, and thats all that matters, or We have a healthy baby, so it doesnt matter if there is no growth. Parents who are excited about the conception and birth of their child are also excited about seeing that child grow.

One reason parents can tolerate the 3:00 A.M. feedings is that they know this phase of childhood wont last forever. The same can be said for each stage of a childs growthand arent we all glad that the teenage years with their ups and downs and major crises every week didnt last forever? We grew past all those stages, and so will our children, because growth is the normal and expected outcome of a new birth. In fact, if a child doesnt grow, then loving parents seek whatever help is necessary because they care about their childs development.

Now if human parents are concerned about the growth of their children, then we ought not be surprised that our loving heavenly Father is concerned about the growth of His children. If the Holy Spirit, using the Word of God, brought about conviction in your heart and you put your faith in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, then God is your Father by virtue of your new birth. He wants to make sure that you are growing properly in your Christian life.

Were going to begin our study of spiritual essentials by talking about the nature and importance of spiritual growth. But before we can begin to build a solid biblical understanding of spiritual growth, we need to clear away the rubble that can come from confused thinking. There is an enormous amount of confusion on this matter of how Christians grow spiritually. We need to address some of these issues, because if we dont get our thinking right, we can actually stifle instead of enhance our own spiritual growth, as well as that of others.

For example, some people view spiritual growth as primarily a matter of learning the correct biblical information. This group believes that if you attend enough Christian seminars, read enough books, accumulate enough data, and study the Bible enough, then growth in Christ will follow automatically.

I can identify with this group as a person who spent years studying the Bible in college and seminary. But any seminary student can tell you that studying the Bible and accumulating knowledge can lead to spiritual dryness and stymie growth if that head knowledge is not accompanied by inner spiritual transformation in response to Gods truth.