If your spiritual life has been derailed by the presidential election, Covid, or anything else, and you are having difficulty returning to the Lord, then you may find the following two videos helpful.
Therein, Dr. Jeff Mayfield provides a user-friendly explanation of concepts from the works of John Owen; in particular, his book Communion with God.
The first video is titled, How The Spirit Helps The Weak; the following bullets are highlights [bracketed comments, emboldening and underscoring are mine]:
- The Spirit shows you your wants – what you do want and what you ought to want; in other words, He shows us where we are at in our walk with Christ
- It is easy for us to be spiritually cold, aloof; to be in unbelief, great temptation…
- Our chief duty, when He reveals such things to us, is to concur with Him, accept His diagnosis of our spiritual state
- Part of our problem is very likely that we are desiring worldly things more than godly things
- Perhaps in our prayers, we say what we think God wants to hear, but our heart is somewhere else; or we pray for things that our heart really does not want…
- Remember – the Holy Spirit intercedes according to God’s mind, He prays God’s will for us as in Romans 8:26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
- [He didn’t mention the next verse, but I am pasting it in for those who may not know it, or who may not realize that it fits perfectly with this context: Romans 8: 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.]
- Mayfield provides an example of a prayer the Holy Spirit might have prayed for you in your aloofness from Christ
- The aforementioned work by Christ’s Spirit is a gift of grace, praise the Lord
The title of the following 7 minute second video is Restoring your Delight in Christ; it was posted 4-2-21 by Dr. Jeff Mayfield
Highlights:
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- The key to returning to the Lord is to focus on His love which is demonstrated in the following verses: Isaiah 49:15-16 “Never! Can a mother forget her nursing child? Can she feel no love for the child she has borne? But even if that were possible, I would not forget you! 16 See, I have written your name on the palms of my hands. Always in my mind is a picture of Jerusalem’s walls in ruins. [I pasted in the NLT because it explains what ‘walls’ refers to; they indicate that even though He had punished them via exile via Babylon, who broke down the walls of the city; He still loved them….]
- Christ’s love is consistent, we are the ones who have wandered away when fellowship is strained, distant, cool…
- You may know why your fellowship with the Lord is presently cool or cold; or you may not…
- Do you miss closeness to Him?
- Seek to understand what has led you away: worldly things, activities, plans…; entertainment; carelessness regarding His appointed means of grace [Bible reading; prayer; hearing preaching; taking the Lord’s supper; fellowship with Christians around the word, such as prayer meetings]
- Are you able to identify the cause of your wandering? [It might be a good time to start a journal on what you are learning about yourself and Christ in your walk, your struggles…for help with that, see Categories, Jonathan Edwards, three posts that give Glimpses into his spiritual life – he used his journal extensively to understand the aforementioned and much more]
- Remember that God is still there for you – Dr. M. gives examples of activities that will enable you to draw near again
- Vigorously throw off sin and pursue Christ
- You will likely need to WAIT on the Lord, explained
I was unable to upload the 7 minute video; please click the following link to hear it [while you are at his site, please subscribe – he usually posts a couple of brief videos per week on topics important to believers]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1iRZ_TUucI&list=LL&index=2
For other sermons by Dr. Mayfield in this blog, see: Categories: John Owen; Jonathan Edwards; Thomas Brooks; and Calvin’s Institutes. In all instances, very brief videos were used to discuss difficult topics which were made user friendly, so to speak — easy to understand, by Dr. Mayfield.
His YouTube site is Jeff Mayfield
Jeff Mayfield has served as senior pastor of Stony Hill Baptist Church since September 2013. Having attended church since birth, the Lord saved him during his second year of college. Soon after he was called into the Gospel Ministry and was prepared for that work through studies at Liberty University (B.A.) and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div. and Ph.D.).
Jeff is the husband of Adrienne and the father of nine children: Jude, Eli, Ava, Belle, Evangeline, Lillian, Phoebe, Solomon, and Calvin. Jeff enjoys preaching, biblical studies, history, theology, and mentoring other Christians. For fun he likes spending time with his family, hiking, running, biking, roasting coffee, and photography. [stonyhill.org]