Today, we’re going to look at the topic of “Spiritual Growth”. This is the third foundation stone that we’re looking at in our message series “Five Foundations for Life.” What is spiritual growth all about? When a person becomes a new believer, whether you are 5 or 95, you begin as a spiritual infant. God’s purpose for every believer is that they grow to spiritual maturity. Just as God’s purpose for every baby is that they grow to adulthood, so His purpose is for every new believer to grow to spiritual adulthood.
Now, physical growth pretty much happens automatically, or so it seems. However, there are some requirements for physical growth. A child needs to eat right and learn a whole host of things to grow into a well-rounded productive adult. Regarding spiritual growth, many people think it happens automatically as well. People tend to measure spiritual maturity by how long a person has been a believer, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years and so on. But what does the Bible say?
Hebrews 5:12 (NIV) In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food!
The first thing we can learn from this verse is that God desires every believer to mature to the point they can teach someone else about the truths of God. The second thing we learn is that this desired spiritual growth does not happen automatically. Spiritual growth had not happened for the people this book was written too. They were still spiritual infants, needing spiritual milk, rather than solid food. If spiritual maturity is not measured by how many years you’ve been a believer, how is it measured?
Hebrews 5:13-14 (NIV) Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
These verses show that a mature person understands the teaching about righteousness, that is God’s Word. Not only does a mature person understand the Bible, they have applied it to their lives. A mature person has trained themselves to doing the right things in life.
Today, our topic is Spiritual Growth. We’re going to be looking at how you can accelerate your spiritual growth and grow towards spiritual maturity. Every foundation that we’ll be talking about in this series is important for spiritual growth. However, today, I’m going to talk about how God’s Word can bring about spiritual growth and maturity.
2 Timothy 3:16 (NLT) All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.
That’s a good verse to memorize this week. It’s one of our action steps on the back of your Connect Card. The Bible is essential to growing spiritually. The start of the New Year 2010 is a great time to pursue God’s goal for your life of spiritual growth.
Listen to my January 17, 2010 message “Spiritual Growth” (message-notes).