4 Strategies to Sharpen Your Dulled Spiritual Senses: FREE PRINTABLE!

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The Church today is losing a battle.

In my post Is This Why There Are More Churches Closing Than Opening in America?, I shared the Lifeway Research findings that in America, more churches are closing than are opening, and my own thoughts about that discovery.

I wrote about my own struggles with offering fresh, spiritual food here on A Little R & R and how that is reflective of what is going on in the church today.

But there is something else at play: dulled spiritual senses.

The enemy will do all he can to keep us so engaged with our five spiritual senses that we lose awareness of our spiritual senses.

So that we are so in love with this world and the things of this world that we grow dull in our awareness of His continual presence and voice in our lives.

And he is sneaky.

He will try to distract us with natural events so that we don’t notice that in the spiritual realm, he is laying a trap. Remember, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

And if we aren’t spiritually minded, we will think he wants to steal our stuff, kill our bodies, and destroy our lives.

That can happen, too.

But Jesus wasn’t just talking about the physical realm. Eventually, we will all die, and all of our stuff will go to someone else; we will already be dead, and our physical bodies will be slowly rotting away.

But our spirit will live on forever in heaven or hell.

So, the enemy’s strategy must go further than just this physical life. He’s not nearly as concerned with our “stuff” and our physical body as he is with our heart and our eternal destination.

And he knows that if he can keep our spiritual senses dull, he can also keep us distracted with whatever drama is going on in the physical world while he sets a trap.

What’s worse is he makes the trap look fun, beneficial, or even like a sanctuary, so that when we fall into it, we’ll be glad we’re there.

At first, that is. Until we realize what’s happened, and then we’ll want to fight the spiritual battle we should have fought much earlier.

But our senses are so dull and our muscles untrained for battle that we find we don’t have the strength and stamina we need for the fight.

4 Strategies to Sharpen Your Dulled Spiritual Senses

This was the condition I found myself in not too long ago when I began to take the steps to overcome my distracted mind.

My thoughts were too occupied with social media and constant notifications.

I would sit down to have devotions, and if my phone wasn’t pinging, my mind was with all of the things I needed to do that day.

I would read my Bible only to realize five minutes later that I couldn’t remember what I’d read.

I would pray, but my thoughts were somewhere else.

I knew I needed a radical change in my life to sharpen my dulled spiritual senses so that I could discern between what was temporary and that which had true eternal value.

1. Control Your Electronic Devices

I know this one sounds not very spiritual, but it is, in fact, the one thing that will prevent you from doing the other three things effectively.

Our electronic devices are a double-edged sword.

They have great potential for reaching a large number of people with the gospel at one time, but they also have great potential for distracting us from what is at hand and keeping our spiritual senses so dull that we lose all sight of eternity altogether.

I know that I used to be very unaware of how often I would pick up my phone or how much time I would sit at my computer.

When we learn how to control and discipline our devices, we will be able to do these other three things well.

How does one acquire hearing loss?

By exposing our ears to constant loud sounds until our hearing develops a resistance to those loud sounds.

The Church has developed spiritual hearing loss due to a constant bombardment of distractions called media and entertainment.

And we’ve developed a hearty appetite for this bombardment of media.

Not only has it resulted in spiritual hearing loss, but it has also simultaneously been our trap to keep us locked in and engaged with it, knowing that it deeply offends God.

We are addicted to media, even though much of it blasphemes God right in our homes with cursing His name, glorifying witchcraft and satanic rituals, portraying fornication and adultery, and depicting the most gruesome violence.

Each time we invite this blasphemous media into our lives, we are knowingly and willingly staying in his trap.

2. Wait on God in Prayer

These other three are going to seem trite and simple, but I promise you they are not.

Have you ever tried to wait in God’s presence for a full hour? Or two hours?

In our modern age, when we have to be busy all of the time, when boredom is bad and we have to have our senses teased and our brains engaged, waiting on God has been forgotten.

We don’t have time for that.

This is exactly what I thought when God began convicting me that I hadn’t spent time waiting on Him in a long time.

But when He began reminding me of all of the time I waste distracted on my phone, scrolling through social media, listening to podcasts, and doing other meaningless activities, I realized that I do have time….

If it’s important enough to me.

It’s amazing how clearly we can hear God’s voices when we shut everything off and just sit in silence in His presence and listen.

Each time we do, the layers of dulled hearing fall off.

The scales fall off our eyes.

Our ability to sense His touch in our hearts becomes more sensitive.

Our ability to sense His pleasure or displeasure is stronger.

And we begin living the Christian life exactly the way we were meant to live it all along. Living in this natural world but fully tuned in to the spiritual world.

In constant communication with the Spirit.

3. Meditate on Scripture

I realize that I include this in so many of my posts, but I cannot emphasize for you enough the tremendous power of meditation on Scripture.

It is the difference between grazing on snacks all day and eating a satisfying meal of rib-eye steak dinner.

The one will kind of fill you up, but not really satisfy or nourish you; the other will.

Reading a verse or two each day will kind of fill you up, but meditating on Scripture will satisfy and nourish you. And it will do even more than that.

Meditating on Scripture sharpens your spiritual senses because it renews your mind.

By renewing your mind, your thinking changes, and as your thinking changes to align with God’s way of thinking, you are better able to recognize His voice when He speaks to you through His Word.

Even more than that, in those times when we’re faced with a dilemma, God will give us wisdom through His Word by helping us to recall Scripture that deals with that very situation.

David said, “I have more understanding than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation.” Psalm 119:99

4. Worship Every Day

Do you take time to worship God every day? To raise your hands and sing; to bow down on your knees in reverence before Him in His presence?

How about singing your own songs to God? Does this sound strange to you?

There is tremendous power in authentic worship, a power that we have forgotten as we have turned worship into a market and profited from it.

But dear sister, just because there are those who have cheapened worship doesn’t mean that it has lost its power and meaning.

Its power and meaning in our lives are only lost when we allow it to be lost.

It is time for us to go back and rediscover the power and meaning of true, authentic worship in Spirit and in truth, and then daily spend time in God’s presence singing to Him about His power and His greatness.

Singing songs that are already written, and songs that come spontaneously from the depths of our own heart of adoration to Him.

Remember the battles that God won for the Israelites when the worshippers went first.

Remember all of the times God told them to shout a great shout to Him, and that He would defeat their enemies.

And when we do, we will rediscover that worship isn’t just music; it’s a weapon. It’s a powerful weapon to defeat the enemy in our lives.

Spiritual warfare requires sharp spiritual senses to discern the enemy’s strategy and to gain God’s wisdom to know how to advance and win the victory.

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More resources on redeeming the time and gaining control over our social media: