Dare To Grow!

Ephesians 1:¹⁷ “asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God.”

Growth Is Not Automatic. Growth only happens when the conditions for growth are met. The truth is that time alone does not determine maturity. Some people are old, they have gone through life, and time has happened, but they have not grown. While growth must happen over time, the passage of time does not always result in growth. As a believer, you have to make up your mind to grow. As a wife, and as a husband, you must make up your mind to grow. Enough of being a child, enough of being a forty-year-old in diapers. Enough! You must make up your mind to grow. And you must dare to grow. Hebrews 5:¹² “You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.”

There are people who come to me and say, “Pastor, let us pray so that we can sort this out.” And I say to them, “By now, I should be trusting you to help me sort this kind of thing out for people, not that you will be coming to me to help you sort this out”. These are basic things. A time should come when you are able to eat solid food. A time should come when you stop drinking milk and you start eating solid food. But you are so big now and you are still taking the feeding bottle. Something is wrong with that spiritually. It is not okay for you to have gone through time and you have not grown. It is not okay for you to have been a Christian, in church for X number of years, and you are still keeping malice, and still gossiping. It is not okay! You need to dare to grow. You need to decide to continue growing and not stop growing. Growth is not automatic.

The second thing that follows, is the fact that You Are Responsible For Your Growth. Your spouse is not responsible for your growth. Now, this is going to shock you. Guess what? Your pastor is not responsible for your growth. Your Pastor should feed you, but you have to eat the food. Your pastor should teach you the Word, but you have to receive the Word and wrestle with the Word. You are responsible for your growth. 1 Peter 2:^1-2 “So get rid of all evil behaviour. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment” (emphasis added). Who is responsible for the “getting rid”? You! The Bible did not say, pray for an angel, or ask your Pastor to help you. It is your call!

Prayer: Father, please strengthen me to start and continue to do what I must do even as I take responsibility for my growth, in Jesus Name. Amen!