Day 23 – How We Grow
God wants you to grow up!
Our reading on day 23 is a reminder that it is easy to grow older, it’s a different story to grow mature. How many of us know someone (maybe it’s you) that has been a Christian for a long time but has never seemed to reach a point of maturity. We go through the lessons over and over again stuck in perpetual infancy with diapers and booties… king baby syndrome we call it..
Spiritual growth is not automatic. It is something we have to want. You must want to grow, decide to grow, make an effort to grow and persist and persevere in growing. It’s much like the saying, “many are called but few are chosen.” Who are the ones that are chosen you wonder? It’s the ones that simply decide to raise their hands…
When we decided to follow Jesus, we really didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into did we? The desciples didn’t know either. When Jesus called, they followed. They decided to follow, and that is the first step. Decision.
Your commitments that you make define you and nothing shapes your life more. Your commitments can develop you or destroy you. We become whatever we are committed to. Many people are afraid of commitments and just drift along through life. Some make half hearted commitments. Others commit themselves to the wrong things wholeheartedly giving themselves completely to something that has no eternal rewards and is temporary. What things come to mind for you in these categories?
There is a very unique “divine exchange” that happens when we grow. First we decide to make the commitment to Christ, to become Christlike, and we recognize that growth is not something that we “do.” There is our part and there is His part. As the saying goes, “you can’t live a Christian life without a Christian life to live…” Our job is to “work out” our salvation. His part is to work his life into us.
To change your life you must change what you think. Behind everything you do is a thought. Again, there are sayings that we can refer to, “sow a thought, reap an action, sow an action, reap a habit, sow a habit, reap a character, sow a charactor reap an eternal destiny.” It begins in our thought life. Even psycologists recognize that truth and warn ” Be careful how you think, your life is shaped by your thoughts.”
Of course there is always the question of “will-power.” After all we see those very disciplined people who with strong focused willpower make incredible changes to their lives. Willpower produces short term results but it doesn’t change the root cause of many behaviors. You quickly revert back to the old way of doing things. Willpower alone cannot create long term growth.
The Bible says “Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Romans 12:2. Change always starts in your mind. To be like Christ, you must have Christ’s mind. The Greek word for “repentance” actually means to “change your mind.”
We change our mind about a lot of things. The first is about ourselves. We stop thinking self centered immature thoughts. If we are to grow out of our “babyhood” we have to quit thinking like a baby. Babies are pretty demanding and only thinking of their own needs. They are incapable of giving. Only receiving.
Thinking maturely focuses on the needs of others. Love is something really only mature believers can demonstrate fully because love is unselfish and sacrificial.
Christian maturity is not how much you know. The great love chapter in I Corinthians 13 brings this out when Paul writes” though I have the gift of prophesy and have all knowledge and understand all mysteries, if I do not have love it does not profit me..”
God gives us his spirit to mature us, teach us to love, become selfless and serve others with character in integrity. Let’s allow God by his spirit to help us change the way we think. We can only grow if we do.