You will love the Lord your God with all your heart and your entire mind and all your strength (worship) you will love your neighbor with the love of God. (Service and fellowship). There are some things we need to pursue so as to keep our spiritual lives healthy in church and as individuals. Strip yourself of every defilement, get rid of hypocrisy and set goals that will keep you out of every thing that defiles. There are 5 identifiable practices that are sure to keep your spiritual life in good health as a church and as individuals and these are:

Worship; fellowship; discipleship; ministry and evangelism.

Worship: This is measuring worth to God, giving Him his due worth in your life and with all your heart. It starts by acknowledging His place in your life. He owns you. He has a right to your life and all you claim to be yours. He is your God and Father if you are born again. It shows in your total submission and obedience to Him. When our hearts respond positively to Him as He reveals Himself and places His loving demands on us, then we are giving Him worship. Abraham worshipped when he went with Isaac to the mount of sacrifice in obedience to GOD. It means counting God to be much more than our needs or discomforts and placing our selves at a place of prompt obedience to His every request. Gen.22: 1-6. We are planned for God's pleasure. We derive strength from worship. Romans 12:1-2 says we present our bodies as living sacrifices. It is our reasonable service. When all our lives are like this and we then come together to praise His name, we can have divine exchange, our weakness for His strength. Our lack for His abundance in all areas of life.

Fellowship: Partnership, communion, sharing things in common. You are formed for His family. Our fellowship is with God and one another. This will produce in us the ability to take our right place in the Body and be a blessing one to another. In fellowshipping with one another we are encouraged not to give place to the works of the flesh as in Gal 5:22. If we also understand Godly boundaries we will maximize our blessings. The spies brought an evil report as a result of bad fellowship with one another against the word of God to Moses in Numbers 13-14. Let the word of God be the basis for our fellowship. See Gen. 39 on how Joseph stayed within Godly boundaries. The goal of fellowship is to build not tear down, to edify and see God's purposes fulfilled in line with the vision of the church. Be a builder and let God''''s word define your boundaries.

Discipleship: This is the process through which the character and power of Christ is formed in us. This has to do with hearts affected by the reality of the gospel. Humility, faithfulness and Integrity and the key issues in Character formation. It starts with commitment to the truth we hear. Commitment leads to faithfulness and these lead to loyalty. We also need to renew our minds as we act on the Word and meditate in the written Word. Christ is in us and His life within should be given permission to educate our minds through the Word. It is cultivating a new lifestyle with a new mentality. Romans 12 talks about the renewal of our minds. Our minds are renewed as we dislodge former thought patterns and replace them with God's Word firmly. We cultivate new habits that will produce maturity in us. We were created to be like Christ.

Ministry: This is our service. We are shaped for serving God. We are to discover our gifts for service develop them and use them to serve others as we serve God. Romans 12:3-8 talk about our motivational gifts. We all have them. You must have your area of service that is ever improving and increasing. As you serve, you will make more discoveries about yourself and God's will for you. The greatest in the Kingdom is the servant of all. Through service we grow and God can commit more into our hands as He finds us faithful.

Evangelism: This is the art of winning souls into the Kingdom. It is presenting the message of the Gospel so clearly that many people see the light and come into the Kingdom. It takes a lot of work to get it done. You will have to overcome your fears and see the sacrifice of the Son of God on the cross as being worthy to take up the challenge to be passionate about seeing others come into the Kingdom. We would pray and labor to see it happen because our elder Brother Jesus Christ paid the price for humanity and His sacrifice will not be in vain. Read 2 Corinthians 5: 17-21 to see the good news. Set goals to bring in as many people to salvation.

If we all commit to these, we shall see our church health blossom and see growth as we become healthier. Set goals to see these things happen.

God bless you all.

Rev Kola Ewuosho