Growth And Discipleship

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defence – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”
1 John 2:1,2 (NIV)

It’s amazing what parents will do to see growth in their children. When parents suddenly realize that their child is shorter than other children of the same age most start booking appointments with doctors and embark on a regimen of nutrition or medication. They don’t want their youngster to be underdeveloped.

I’ve also been thinking about how we grow spiritually. Normal physical growth is the result of three factors; Nature, Nutrition, and Nurture. The right kind of food, exercise, and enough sleep in a good environment usually ensures that our children grow up healthy. The same factors produce spiritual growth as well. The New Testament says, “No one who is born of God will continue to sin because God’s seed remains in him…” (1 John 3:9). Growth is the result of our response to what God has done in our lives.

Interested in becoming all that you can be spiritually?
*Then make it a habit to be in God’s Word on a daily basis.
*Make prayer part of your daily routine.
*Be quick to acknowledge when you have violated what you know to be right. John says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

When difficulties come instead of thinking of them as God’s rebuke, consider them opportunities to grow and find out how great God’s resources are for His children. Your greatest growth spiritually does not take place in church where you feel warm and cosy but out on the playing fields of life where your faith is challenged by a hard world and by situations which you wish you didn’t have to face. It is there that we grow or die. It is there where we find a faith forged by fire, one which will take us through – perhaps scarred, but intact and better because of it.

Prayer
Father, I want to keep on growing to maturity in the faith.
Help me to apply the necessary factors that will help me to be like Jesus.
Amen

Study by Fraser Murdoch