God wants our development so find path of the growth.
Instead, speaking the truth in love, let us grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ.
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
God wants you to grow. Your heavenly Father’s goal for you is for you to mature and grow into Christlikeness.
Sadly, millions of Christians grow old but do not grow up. They are caught up in spiritual childhood, showing childish behavior because they do not try to grow up.
Spiritual growth is not immediate it is a sacrifice that takes time. You have to be willing to grow, be willing to grow, decide to grow, strive to grow, and keep growing.
Discipleship The process of becoming like Christ always begins with a decision. Jesus calls us, and we respond. And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.
When the early disciples chose to follow Jesus, they did not fully understand what their decision meant.
They simply responded to Jesus’ invitation to begin and you must do the same and decide to become a disciple. Nothing shapes your life more than something you choose to give yourself to.
The things you are committed to can make you great or destroy you, but they will define you both ways. Tell me what you are committed to, and he will tell you what you will be in twenty years and we will be what you are committed to.
It is at this point of commitment that many people mistake God’s purpose for their lives. Many go about life quietly for fear of sacrificing for something.
Others give themselves halfway rather than wholeheartedly, which leads to destruction and despair.
Others devote themselves to the goals of this world such as becoming rich or famous and end up in public sorrow and bitterness.
Every choice has eternal consequences, so you have to be very careful when you choose. Peter warns, Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what kind of persons ought you to be in all holy conduct and godliness?
You must live a pure life, the life of God’s people. It is to become Christlike and rely on the help of the Spirit to make these choices.
If you make Christlikeness a big deal and it takes a while, you need to start working in a new way.
You need to give up some of your old habits, develop some new habits, and change your way of thinking.
You can be sure that the Holy Spirit will help you with these changes.
The Bible says, Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.
Continue to work in harmony with your salvation, with fear and trembling. For it is not God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
This is the two parts of spiritual growth in the explanation of saying and working in the field. Working in the field is your role, and working in the field is God’s role.
Spiritual growth is the hard work you and the Holy Spirit do together. The Spirit of God works with us, not in us.
This passage written to believers shows how they grow, not how they are healed. He is not saying work for your salvation, because you cannot add anything to what Jesus has already done.
When you do physical activity, you are not working to gain a body, you are working to strengthen your body,
When a puzzle works to bring the separate parts of something together, you hold the small parts and your job is to bring them together.
Farmers do not work their land to acquire land, but to strengthen what they have. God has given you new life, and now it is your responsibility to nurture Him with fear and sheep.
That means taking your spiritual growth seriously. When people take their spiritual growth for granted, it shows that they do not understand its eternal consequences.
You have to change the way you think in order to live your life. There is an idea behind everything you do.
Any character is strengthened by trust, and any action is accelerated by attitude.
God revealed this thousands of years ago before psychologists understood it. Because the necessities of life come from the mind, keep your mind careful. Imagine a motorboat released on a lake to sail east.
If he wants to change her direction so that she can go west, there are two things she can do. One way is to forcefully grab the boat and try to make it go in the opposite direction to where she is going.
You can use force to defeat the boat, but it will require you to work hard at it consistently.
Gradually, your arm will tire of you, and you will let it go where it was going before, because its insides are programmed to go there.
This is what happens when you want to change your life in your own strength.
You say, I force myself to cut down on food and exercise more and it can cause some scheduling and procrastination, but inner stress that doesn’t focus on each other.
The change doesn’t feel natural, so you slowly get discouraged, go back to your meals, and stop exercising.
You quickly return to your old routine. There is an easier and better way, change your engine the way you think.
The Bible says, Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The first step in spiritual growth is to change the way you think. Change always starts in your mind.
The way you think determines your emotions, and your emotions influence your work. Paul said, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind;
To be like Christ, you must cultivate the mind of Christ. The New Testament calls this idea of conversion conversion, which in Greek means to change one’s mind.
When you change his way of thinking to take God’s way of thinking about yourself, about sin, about God, about other people, about life, about your future and about other things everything is called a change of heart when you change the way you think.
You adopt the way of thinking and attitude of Christ. He commands us to have the same mind that Christ Jesus had. There are two parts to this.
The first part of this mindset change is not thinking with immature thoughts, which are selfish thoughts and selfishness.
The Bible says, Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. but in evil be as children.
Children are selfish by nature. They think only about themselves and their needs. They will take but they cannot give.
That’s an immature idea. Sadly, many people don’t grow up with this kind of thinking.
The Bible says that selfish thinking is the source of sinful behavior.
For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
The second part of thinking like Jesus is to start thinking maturely. That’s not focusing on yourself, but on the people they’re up against.
In his great chapter on true love, Paul summarizes that thinking about others is a sign of maturity. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I lived as a child.
Today spiritual maturity is measured by the amount of biblical information and doctrine you know. Knowledge is one of the measures of maturity but it is not complete.
The Christian life goes beyond faith and involves character. Our works must be in harmony with our faith, and our faith must be in harmony with the character of Christ.
Christianity is not a religious party or a philosophy, but a relationship and a way of life. The essence of that lifestyle is to think about others rather than ourselves, as Jesus did.
The Bible says, Let each of us please his neighbor for that which is good, to build up the life of unity . . . .
Caring for others is central to Christ likennessus and the greatest evidence of spiritual growth.
Such thoughts are unnatural, unique, rare, and difficult.
But we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
In the next few chapters we will look at using the tools of the Holy Spirit to help us grow.