HAVE YOU STOPPED GROWING?

 

It’s a tragic thing when a child isn’t growing. We take them to specialists to try to discover the source of their stunted progress. We know that it’s natural for healthy things to grow, and we long for our children to experience the joy of normal physical development.

Although it’s less easily seen, adults can stop growing. Not just physically, for we all have the gradual cell loss that leads to earthly death. But no man or woman should stop growing spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

Paul believed that we should keep growing. He believed it was possible even in suffering (especially in suffering.) He said we shouldn’t lose heart, “but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).

His Apostle-friend, Peter, joins him in this admonition …

You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Pet. 3:17-18)

Notice there is a deliberate direction of this spiritual growth and a singular source.

GROW IN THE GRACE

We should be receiving more and more grace. Grace is given from God alone and results in a greater desire and power to do what God asks. When people stop growing in grace, they have less desire and less power to follow Christ.

Are you growing more in grace? Do you have more desire to obey God or less? More ability to follow Him, or is that decreasing? Are you growing in graciousness and Christlikeness? In the power and beauty of a maturing, godly life? When was the last time your heart was thrilled with a fresh experience and understanding of God and His truth?

… AND KNOWLEDGE

The knowledge he speaks of here is experiential, to know someone or something in a deep, experienced way. A husband or wife, if they are loving each other well, come to know each other more and more, deeper and deeper. They grow in a rich understanding of each other, and they are better for it. Paul was willing to give up everything he had in order to “know Christ” (Phil. 3:10).

… OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

Here is the key. Our growth should be in Christ, through Christ, for Christ, and about Christ. He is the focus of our growth and the genesis.

“There cannot be any grace except as we know Christ. And there can be no growth in grace except as we grow in our knowledge of Christ. We must always test whether we are growing by asking this: Do I know more of Christ today than I did yesterday? Do I live nearer to Christ today than I did a little while ago? (Charles Spurgeon)

Real growth is to know Him more, love Him better, serve Him more faithfully and fully. It is to experience the conscious awareness of His presence more often and let Him be in your mind. “I have set the Lord continually before me,” David said, and this was the key to his remarkable, growing life. David’s growth stopped only when he took His gaze away from Christ and placed it on another.

We’ve spent millions of dollars and tried for centuries to stop the aging process, to little avail. My dear, 86-year-old friend and I had breakfast recently and his eyes lit up as he told me that he was experiencing the Lord’s presence more than ever. This has come, though, in his life through a continual pursuit of God. He’s hungry for more, and God is rewarding him with growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What could be richer?