Tuesday, 10 June 2008

• It's time to grow up now

  
  I once heard the comment said, "The only difference between a Christian and someone who isn't is that we realized we need Jesus." I beg to differ. I know that sometimes it seems that way, but there is more to being a Christian than a mere realization that you are a sinner in need of a Saviour.
  
  What's the difference between the Children of God and the Children of the World? These days there hardly seems to be a difference. There is hardly a community, there is hardly love for each other, there is hardly change in character/person but a "this is me, accept me and all my faults or leave me alone" outlook. We say that and one may wonder, well, God accepts us as who we are, He doesn't ask for us to change ourselves before coming to Him does He? No, you're right, He doesn't, but then again, He doesn't expect you to be the same person forever does He? He wants us to grow up in Him. He doesn't want us to remain babies. He has placed a desire in our hearts to want more of Him and He wants us to follow that desire and become mature in Him.
  
  Paul wrote the following to the Corinthians :
  

  And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual,
  but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed
  you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not
  able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet
  carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife,
  and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
  1 Cor 3:1-3 KJV
  

  
  We shouldn't be satisfied to stay in the early stages of our growth, there is so much more to learn and so much more to receive from the Word. We should be hungry for this, growing and learning to walk in Him, not just crawl.
  Sometimes I'm overcome with envy or with some other form of carnality and it doesn't do me well to stay in that state, actually, I get really uncomfortable when I feel those ways and in that I am reminded that I need to continually seek God to remove it from my life, to help me to grow. In the beginning it was hard to turn to God and easier to just sit in the carnal thinking, now I've found that it's harder to sit in it and much easier to turn to God.
  
  There is that flame in each of us that makes us want more, yet, the more we ignore it, the easier it is to not realize that it's there. Don't fall into that trap, instead, we should always be on the look out for God's voice and His tender leadings. The more we hear His voice the easier we can discern that it is His voice and take action.
  
  

  And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses
  and sins; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the
  course of this world, according to the prince of the power
  of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
  disobedience: Among whom also we all had our conversation
  in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of
  the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children
  of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy,
  for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we
  were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,
  (by grace ye are saved;) And hath raised us up together,
  and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
  That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches
  of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
  Eph 2:1-7 KJV
  

  
  Before Christ, we were under the influence of these carnal things. In Christ we are seated above them in heavenly places where Christ also sits. As Christians we should take it a step further, we shouldn't just realize that we are sinners, we should accept Christ's leadings and move towards growing in Him.
  
  
  

  • 4:53 PM
  • 341 Views
  • 10 eProps
  • 13 Comments