Planted by Water

Jon Dumville (what a great guy!) has asked me what I meant by the word, superspirtuality, that I used in my last post. So incase anyone else was wondering, I though I’d write a post on it. Of course, the problem with any words that we use is that different people mean slightly different things by them. So I’ll just explain what I mean when I use this word.

It is a false and phony kind of spirituality (though people demonstrating it may be sincere about it and doing what they think and have been taught is spiritual), a replacement for true life in the Spirit which will be characterised by total faith in the supernatural whilst being very real, down-to-earth, free, light in spirit and full of God’s good grace. Truly spiritual people are a joy to be around. Superspiritual people are oten intense, ‘heavy,’ introspective and sometimes just plain weird!

Of course, there are obvious forms of it, but some are quite subtle and we can all fall prey to them if not careful. I preached on the dangers of superspirituality recently and I gave these as examples of its manifestations (they are just some):

• Looking for deep inner reasons for things when we are just experiencing the normal emotions and moods of being human!
• Claiming that we have discerned something about someone when really it’s just that we don’t like them!
• Thinking that we always need to have a word for everything instead of using God given common sense and the principles of Scripture (of course, sometimes we do need a word from God).
• Thinking that God will always ‘move’ in the same way on us, or other people, or in the meeting (God likes to suprise us and we should be careful not to make a ‘ritual’ out of charismatic manifestations)
• Thinking that God would ‘never do that’ (Don’t box God in)
• Thinking that you can only do certain things - laugh, dance, have a word for someone - when you are ‘in the Spirit’ which they think refers to some ecstatic state (all of life is to be in the Spirit; though there are times when you are wonderfully aware of God’s anointing in a heightened way, it doesn’t need to be characterised by shakes, wobbles, grunting or funny voices!)
• Believing that we can’t control it when the ‘Spirit comes on us’ when in fact the Bible teaches us that the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet!
• Blaming the devil, past hurts or others for our condition, when actually life is about the choices we make!
• Not being willing to receive correction from others because ‘the Spirit told me’ or ‘the Spirit hasn’t shown me that yet.’

One word of warning: sometimes genuine men and women of faith have been dismissed as ’superspiritual’ or worse because of their total faith in God’s superatural power. Never let the worry of being superspiritual stop you having faith, and moving out in a way that seems reckless to others. When the general climate is low on true spirtuality, the genuinely spiritual will seem superspiritual to the majority!!

My advice is keep focused on Jesus, rooted in the Bible, open to others, then just go and live by faith, enjoy life, keep it real, stay in grace and live for something greater than yourself - the purpose of God - and you won’t go far wrong!

Wow! I didn’t expect to write that much.