Pinpointing Your Spiritual Location: Identifying Where You Are in Your Spiritual Journey

One of the most important parts of navigating the Kingdom is knowing your spiritual location. Before you can follow directions, you have to know where you are. That sounds simple, but it is one of the most difficult things for a minister to do honestly.

Think about it this way. If you are in one city but keep insisting that you are already in another city, you will never receive the directions you need to get there. In the same way, if you refuse to acknowledge your true spiritual condition, you cannot properly follow the Holy Spirit. You will be receiving directions for a location you have not yet arrived at, and they will not make sense to you. Or worse, you will be receiving directions for where you actually are, but you will dismiss them because you have convinced yourself you are somewhere else.

To comprehend the length of God's love is to discern how He moves you from one spiritual location to another. It is to understand your growth path. Unless you are able to do so, you will never truly discern the location of others. And if you fail to discern how you moved from one spiritual location to another, you remain a babe, regardless of your title, your years in ministry, or the size of your congregation.

This is not a comfortable truth, but it is a necessary one. The Word in Revelation 3:17 speaks directly to those who are deceived about their location: "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." The danger is not just being in a wrong spiritual location. The danger is being in a wrong spiritual location and not knowing it.

Haggai 1:5 and 7 give the same instruction twice, which tells us God considers it urgent: "Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways." Consider. Examine. Look at where you are and what is happening around you. Stop moving on autopilot. Stop assuming that because you are busy with ministry, you must be in a good spiritual place.

Lamentations 3:40 calls for active self-assessment: "Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD." And Psalm 139:23-24 invites God into the process: "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

The instruction for taking an honest spiritual location reading is this: identify what strengthened you, then be very careful to identify the thing that caused you to fail or fall. Were you too emotional, or fearful, or maybe distracted by unlawful influences? Go for the jugular. Tell the truth. Do not give yourself a pass. Do a righteous assessment of your spiritual location. It is your understanding of the work of God in your life that makes you valuable to the Kingdom. It enables you to minister the grace of God to others.

And here is a principle that must be settled in your heart: your spiritual location does not depend on how people treat you, but how you treat them. That is the real measure. Not what has been done to you, but how you have responded. Not what others have failed to give you, but what you have chosen to give in spite of it.

Wisdom is the ability to apply the knowledge you have. You must take all that happens, positive and negative, inside your circumstances, situations, and relationships, and extract the wisdom of God out of them. Pinpoint God's position, His will, and His purpose for allowing the situation to occur. Discern what the enemy is doing and the vessels he is using. But never forget: those vessels are either brothers and sisters in the Kingdom or souls who need to be brought into the Kingdom. Allow the knowledge of their spiritual location to guide you in your dealings with them.

The principles of God are universal. If you are proud or arrogant, say so. But do not neglect to proceed to the end of the matter. If such is the case, then you can truly anticipate God's response, for the proud shall be abased. This is true in your life, and it is true in the lives of those you lead. Be truthful. Never lie to yourself. Your ability to navigate the Kingdom depends entirely on your willingness to know and acknowledge exactly where you are.