A group of us meet together on Sunday evenings for a time of worship and mutual encouragement in our faith. The following are some thoughts that came out of our discussion on the topic of spiritual growth. I trust they will be of benefit to you as you yield to Father's working in your life.

First we need to start with this basic understanding. When you are born again, accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour and become a part of God's family, something miraculous happens. Your sins are forever forgiven, God changes your heart to give you a desire for Him and God Himself comes to live inside you in the person of the Holy Spirit. You are a brand new creation. He breathes life into your dead spirit so that as 1 Corinthians 6:17 describes, you become one spirit with Him. He is now your very life. What is true of Christ is now true of you because He is your life. Is Jesus holy and righteous? Then you are holy and righteous. You will never be more righteous at some future date than you are right now. All praise goes to Father. You are like an acorn. Does an acorn become an oak, or is it already an oak? Of course it is an oak, it will never become 'oakier' than it is already. With the right conditions and given time it will grow into a mature tree but it is now and will always be an oak. So it is with you and I. When we speak of growing spiritually, we are speaking of our true nature in Christ, that is already the essence of who we are, coming into maturity and growth to become all we were meant to be by our Creator.

Before I understood Christ was my life I would have described spiritual growth and how it was attained much differently than I would now. I would have said a spiritually mature believer witnessed all the time, had a lot of conversion notches on their belt, could speak of lots of miraculous answers to prayer, knew tons of Bible verses by memory (including the addresses!), talked about Jesus to everyone they met, never got angry, were always kind and loving, had read through their entire Bible many times and on and on. In essence I judged spirituality by how the person looked or sounded. So what could be wrong with that? It was all based on externals. Some of those things were good things but they did not necessarily reflect a growing level of spirituality. If you are a believer long enough and try hard enough you can make a lot of that happen and it can look pretty good. We like to make our spiritual growth measurable so we can see if we are on track. But we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Judging by externals keeps the ball in my court where I control how I am doing. But God Himself has to be the judge of our motives because we will either be too easy or to hard on ourselves but we will never get it right.

So if spiritual growth is not about becoming more righteous or more holy than what is it? Good question. What is the purpose of the Christian life? John 17:3 "And this is eternal life that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." John 6:29 "Jesus answered and said to them, 'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.'" John 5:39-40 "You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life." 1 John 5:20 "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true and we re in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." The purpose of the Christian life is intimacy with Him. So spiritual growth is growing in intimacy with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ.

Because of who Christ is and God's purpose on this earth we will find something happening as we grow in intimacy with Him. Paul expressed it beautifully in Ephesians 1:3-14 " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace which He made to abound to us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth &endash; in Him. In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory. In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory."

 Everything is to be summed up and brought together in Jesus and we bring glory to His name as we allow Christ to live His life through us. This is called walking in the Spirit. It will look like us and sound like us but it will be His miraculous life expressed through our unique personalities. So spiritual growth is getting to know Jesus and God the Father more intimately, yielding to His working in our lives, and trusting Him more in the process. John the Baptist expressed it well when he said that we must decrease and Jesus must increase (John 3:30). This involves admitting to our weakness in order to receive His strength. What do I mean by weakness? I do not mean just those things we don't do well. We need to come to see our strengths as weaknesses as well. Only Christ can minister life so everything we do in our own strength has to go. Even our best efforts in our own power are futile. They might look good but it is not a question of good or bad but of life or death.

 So how does this happen? Through a process that is repeated over and over again in our lives called brokenness. On the homepage of the ministry website is a picture of a pot. It is very unique and pictures the brokenness that God must work in our lives for His Son to be seen. From the outside it looks like two pots but the outer pot has been broken in many places to reveal the pot that is underneath. Yet when you look at the top you see that it is actually one pot. We are one with Christ, but for His life to show through we must be broken of our own independence. A lot of people might express a desire to grow spiritually but they don't often want to pay the price--the loss of their own life. Many settle for comfort instead. If comfort is the goal of your Christian life, then only the positives in life can be received. So a comfort-centered believer is constantly changing herself, others or the world in order to perceive all things as positive. If you pursue comfort long enough, God is gracious and He will give it but the cost is high, it will be the revelation of Christ in your life. Christ desires the goal of the believers life to be maturity, Christ. If Christ is the center than both the positives and negatives can be received because everything pushes us to Christ who is our heart's desire.

 So God brings circumstances or obstacles into our life that cannot be overcome outside of Him. They are tailor made for us and our particular journey. They come from His heart of love always. He always has our best interests at heart and He knows that He Himself is best for us. So God brings an obstacle and we try to overcome it in our own strength. So He sends a bigger obstacle and a bigger one until finally we are convinced of our weakness and we are driven to total dependence on Christ for His strength and Life. What is the end result? A conviction of weakness and Christ's strength, ie spiritual growth. Did you know the obstacles are really treasures? "I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord who call you by your name, am the God of Israel" (Isaiah 45:3 ).

 Maybe it is a failure you experience. Remember God isn't fighting your failures but using them. So God shines His light on our failure. Our failure is a revelation of who our life source was at that moment, i.e. God or self. Then the enemy speaks and says 'are you really a Christian?' We work to overcome the flesh in the power of the flesh. Is that possible? No. Flesh will always be flesh, it cannot ever be improved. So we finally give up and come to Him. What God reveals He always heals. How does He heal? He either takes it away or gives Himself as grace for the process. What is the end result? We become a person of faith, spiritual growth has taken place. We only learn by revelation from God and every new revelation He brings into our lives will build on the last one.

 So do you see how it is all about God? He brings issues into our lives in His timing, He builds on our knowledge of Him, He tailor makes the circumstances to us personally where we are on our journey, and as we yield to Him, He works it out in our lives. Awesome! It is a glory issue and God will not give His glory to another.

 So will there be pain with spiritual growth? Yes, but with a difference and for a purpose. Isaiah 43:1-3 declares "Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour." 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 also affirms this: "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. We are hard pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed &endash; always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you."

 It is the principle of life and death, and life cannot work in others until death has worked in us. Christ's life cannot flow out to others unless we have experienced death to our own life. Let me use something familiar by way of illustration. Take a kernel of corn. If you submit it to heat you can pop it. That one kernel is light and fluffy and nice to look at and good to eat but once eaten it is gone. It was an end in itself. Take that same kernel and plant it in the ground and you get a much different result. It is not pleasant to be buried, it is cold and dirty and very dark. It is the place of death. But in time the outer shell is broken and up grows a shoot through the soil producing a beautiful plant that gives many more kernels. Death producing life for others. Do you want to be popped or planted?! Our spiritual growth is for the benefit of others who are observing our God through what they see in us. We want them to see Jesus!

 It is important to note that growing comes in seasons. A fruit tree always has life in it but it is not always visible is it. In the winter there is not much outward signs of life but under the ground the roots are strong and very much alive and are going down deeper to give the tree stability. The life is in the roots. In the spring come beautiful fragrant blossoms. They are pretty to look at then comes the fruit in the summer. Some of the fruit has to be taken off to make the remaining fruit more useful. The fruit is the result of the life that is within flowing up from the roots. Then comes fall when the leaves come off and more pruning again in winter. It is painful but necessary for the overall growth and health of the tree. It is all part of the process. So take heart when all seems dark and there appears to be no growth. If your roots go deep into Christ you can trust that His life will continue to flow and in His timing you will once again bear fruit for His glory.

 So how do we summarize spiritual growth? The process of spiritual growth is growing in intimacy with Jesus Christ who is our Life and yielding to His working in us which brings about His increase and our decrease so that He can minister life to others through us and bring glory to God. Amen.

- Sue Muldoon