THE MAJOR HINDRANCE TO SPIRITUAL GROWTH
Still on hindrances to spiritual growth, today I'll be sharing on the most fundamental issue to address. First, I'll share a revelation i'd some time ago, and another life experience.
Some years ago, I was very passionate about having my friend stop doing bad things because I very well knew she had accepted Christ too. However, it seemed like a failed attempt because we both went right on sinning in spite of the fact that I was born again. Sadly, we were besties. I was not too happy about it. I knew what was right, I knew what was wrong; left alone, I was managing "avoiding sin" well enough and living like a good Christian; but with her, I was struggling to live right, yet desiring and making efforts for her to be a better Christian. Laughable. Stay with me on this story.
One day, it dawned on me that I was like a toddler who was trying to carry her baby sister, and so we were always falling -
baby and I. Lol.
Years went by and the Lord brought me to a fellowship of believers. A more mature Christian than I was, not older but more mature spiritually, was helping me understand certain principles and other stuff about this Christianity, this relationship with God.
One night, I'd a vision. In the night vision, I saw a toddler limping towards me. I was heartbroken at the sight of it. I felt guilty. I felt like I was responsible for her condition, so I took her up and placed her on an examination table. As I looked closely, I noticed that she had broken hip bones on the right side; but more frightening was the fact that as I examined her much more closely, it turned out that she was not even a toddler, but a suckling baby.
I told my mature Christian friend about it, and by the help of God, he explained the vision to me much more clearly.
First of all, I had thought of the baby as a toddler, but on close examination, I could see she wasn't. That was true about me. I wasn't as spiritually mature as I thought I was. I had been measuring my growth in Christ by counting the number of years I had been born again. Five years of being a Christian, yet I was a baby Christian who knew nothing more than repentance from sin, and salvation by faith in Christ. All I had known was the forgiveness of sins and I thought that was all about Christianity. I thought, "Repent. Accept Christ. Don't sin. Wait for rapture."
The Bible says in Hebrews 6:1, " Therefore let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God..."
Wow....so that was just the elementary stage in the doctrine of Christ. There was more, but I'd no idea about it. In fact, I never came across that Scripture until six years after I'd given my life to Christ.
In the natural human world, doesn't a baby grow after being born? Wouldn't it be absurd that a child was still a baby for five good years? Won't the parents run helter skelter seeking for medical help?
I'd experienced the new birth, no doubt, but I was not growing. I was born again and I thought that was all.
Today, I write to tell you that the fundamental hindrance to your spiritual growth is: WRONG PERCEPTION OF YOUR STATUS.
Maybe you're a baby Christian but you don't know. Maybe you're nothing more than a toddling Christian, but because of some inflated opinion of yourself, you think you're much more mature than that.
No one ever attains perfect spiritual maturity (well, none yet).
Apostle Paul writes in Phil. 3:10-15:
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us, then, who are MATURE should take such a view of things.
So my brothers and sisters, sit back and reflect on your spiritual stature. Ask the Lord to reveal clearly who you are. He surely will. In fact, you shouldn't even bother asking. No one is too old to grow in Christ.
Genuine spiritual stature is not measured by the number of years you have been born again or the number of years you have been in church. There's much more, dear. So much more.
Meditate on Hebrews 6:1.
Let's meet again tomorrow as we address another matter in that vision.
Are you a baby Christian?
Some years ago, I was very passionate about having my friend stop doing bad things because I very well knew she had accepted Christ too. However, it seemed like a failed attempt because we both went right on sinning in spite of the fact that I was born again. Sadly, we were besties. I was not too happy about it. I knew what was right, I knew what was wrong; left alone, I was managing "avoiding sin" well enough and living like a good Christian; but with her, I was struggling to live right, yet desiring and making efforts for her to be a better Christian. Laughable. Stay with me on this story.
One day, it dawned on me that I was like a toddler who was trying to carry her baby sister, and so we were always falling -
baby and I. Lol.
Years went by and the Lord brought me to a fellowship of believers. A more mature Christian than I was, not older but more mature spiritually, was helping me understand certain principles and other stuff about this Christianity, this relationship with God.
One night, I'd a vision. In the night vision, I saw a toddler limping towards me. I was heartbroken at the sight of it. I felt guilty. I felt like I was responsible for her condition, so I took her up and placed her on an examination table. As I looked closely, I noticed that she had broken hip bones on the right side; but more frightening was the fact that as I examined her much more closely, it turned out that she was not even a toddler, but a suckling baby.
I told my mature Christian friend about it, and by the help of God, he explained the vision to me much more clearly.
First of all, I had thought of the baby as a toddler, but on close examination, I could see she wasn't. That was true about me. I wasn't as spiritually mature as I thought I was. I had been measuring my growth in Christ by counting the number of years I had been born again. Five years of being a Christian, yet I was a baby Christian who knew nothing more than repentance from sin, and salvation by faith in Christ. All I had known was the forgiveness of sins and I thought that was all about Christianity. I thought, "Repent. Accept Christ. Don't sin. Wait for rapture."
The Bible says in Hebrews 6:1, " Therefore let us go on and get past the elementary stage in the teachings and doctrine of Christ (the Messiah), advancing steadily toward the completeness and perfection that belong to spiritual maturity. Let us not again be laying the foundation of repentance and abandonment of dead works (dead formalism) and of the faith [by which you turned] to God..."
Wow....so that was just the elementary stage in the doctrine of Christ. There was more, but I'd no idea about it. In fact, I never came across that Scripture until six years after I'd given my life to Christ.
In the natural human world, doesn't a baby grow after being born? Wouldn't it be absurd that a child was still a baby for five good years? Won't the parents run helter skelter seeking for medical help?
I'd experienced the new birth, no doubt, but I was not growing. I was born again and I thought that was all.
Today, I write to tell you that the fundamental hindrance to your spiritual growth is: WRONG PERCEPTION OF YOUR STATUS.
Maybe you're a baby Christian but you don't know. Maybe you're nothing more than a toddling Christian, but because of some inflated opinion of yourself, you think you're much more mature than that.
No one ever attains perfect spiritual maturity (well, none yet).
Apostle Paul writes in Phil. 3:10-15:
I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us, then, who are MATURE should take such a view of things.
So my brothers and sisters, sit back and reflect on your spiritual stature. Ask the Lord to reveal clearly who you are. He surely will. In fact, you shouldn't even bother asking. No one is too old to grow in Christ.
Genuine spiritual stature is not measured by the number of years you have been born again or the number of years you have been in church. There's much more, dear. So much more.
Meditate on Hebrews 6:1.
Let's meet again tomorrow as we address another matter in that vision.
Are you a baby Christian?
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