Monday, February 29, 2016

RLD Week 3 - Spiritual Growth

12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13 But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3
I've often heard the term of being a spiritual infant, but this book gives further descriptions to identify where you are in your spiritual journey.
  • Spiritually dead - Those who deny or are unaware of Christ
  • Spiritual infants - Those who are aware of Christ, but ignorant about following Christ.  Think of someone who goes to church and believes, but still is gripped by the sin in their life and is not aware their behavior is a sin.
  • Spiritual children - Those who are aware their behavior is a sin, but still are not ready to give it up.  They're still focused on themselves and why they should be allowed to continue that behavior.
  • Spiritual adolescents - Those who are embracing the life called of them and are giving of themselves to further Christ's church.  They recognize their sin and are opposed to it, but still stumble.
  • Spiritual parents - Those who are leading others to become disciples.  They recognize their own sin, but they also will mentor others to help them see their own sin and help others in their spiritual battle.
I was floored when I saw the depth in each of these areas.  I only scratched the surface, but each one had a full three pages written to describe the behaviors and traits of someone at that spiritual "age."  I had only heard of two of those terms before; being spiritually dead and being a spiritual infant.  The thought never occurred to me that those infants would need to grow up!
Now, don't panic if you don't think you're in the parent stage.  Some people never get there, and that's fine.   Each person has their own place, and moves through those stages at their own pace.  You may take many years in one stage before moving on to another stage that may go quickly for you.
The part of this that was fascinating to me, was that I could tell you exactly when I moved on to the each stage.  Something profound happened in my life that happened to move me from being dead to being an infant - that is my born again experience.  I can tell you exactly when I became a child, when I knew I was doing things unpleasing to God, but I was still focused on me and my desires.  I can tell you when I became an adolescent and began to actively work to change my life so that it would be more Christ-like and I would turn away from those sins.
I am in the spot now where I'm thinking that I want to make a transition to be a spiritual parent, but I'm not sure.  The next few weeks will go into detail on each of these spiritual ages, but not in terms of what you should do in those stages, but how to identify those around you in those stages and help to encourage them along their journey.  Think about where you are, and if you have those moments that stand out to you relating to when you changed stages.

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