Oh, to be what He wants us to be
May 4, 2008 (Sunday)
What is spiritual maturity? It is being comfortable with spiritual things. It is strong faith and faithfulness to God. In short, spiritual maturity is everything you think of when you visualize a good Christian. Spiritual maturity is the result of spiritual growth.
The Lord wants you to grow. Maintain your faith, therefore, at all costs. “Continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of” (2 Tim 3:14 NIV). Prolonged spiritual infancy dishonors God and slows His work. The spiritual growth of His people is critical to the spread of the gospel to the people of this world. Never give up. Keep growing.
The Lord helps you to grow. He can help you, as he aided Timothy, through family, friends, and the Scriptures. Timothy was fortunate in that he had been taught the Scriptures since childhood. His faith was personal and real, and it had been modeled by his mother and grandmother. It had been enhanced by the teaching of Paul and other strong Christians.
The Lord enables you to grow. “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Phil 2:13 NIV). He gives you a new kind of life. He replaces fear with power, selfishness with love, sin with self-control. Paul spoke for all of us when he declared, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Phil 4:13 NIV).
Experience spiritual growth, so that you may say with the great apostle at the end of your life, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7 NIV). May your last day on earth be a day of spiritual growth.
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These thoughts are based on Paul’s charge to Timothy (2 Tim 3:10-17 NIV):
10You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, 11persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. 12In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, 13while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. 14But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.