February 6th, 2024
How many of you have had a day or a year that seemed to pass more quickly than it should have? Some days drag on and on, while others seem to fly. Time is such an interesting thing, because though constant, our perception of it changes. This week though, I’ve thought about time differently than I ever have before.
Aging is a result of the passage of time and while we can address its effects, there’s nothing we can do to slow it down. This is a concern for more people that you’d think. The anti-aging market in the U.S. was valued at over 17 billion dollars in 2022 (You can google, if you don’t believe me). However, for all of that money spent, no one successfully added one day to their lives. If you’re alive, you’re aging!
However, have you ever thought about time’s effect on your eternal soul? While your body ages, your spirit does not. We do get closer to the time we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, but our soul doesn’t age, like our body does. It is eternal and every human being is aware of that truth on some level. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He has put eternity into man’s heart.” This isn’t easy to wrap our minds around, but the time we will spend in our bodies is but a moment in comparison to eternity. How much more important then, is our spiritual growth than anything else? 1 Timothy 4:8 says,
“While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
With that in mind, we should spend much more time focused on our “spiritual training” than our physical. Now, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of our bodies, but we should focus on the part of us that will live for eternity!
A physical body will mature by the natural growth process as long as it has what it needs to perform the functions of life (food, water, air). However, a spirit does not. Your spirit won’t grow and mature just because time passes. Spiritual growth and maturity are a choice.
Throughout the scriptures, the idea of “growing” spiritually is referenced multiple times. More than one New Testament writer compared new Christians to spiritual “babies” and emphasized the importance of growing up! 1 Peter 2:2 says,
“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.”
Hebrews 5:12-14 says,
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
That is such a powerful and sobering scripture. Look at what it says, again: “By this time you ought to be teachers…” If they had taken the time to nourish their spirits and grow, they would have already matured. However, they didn’t. They were spiritual children, unnaturally stunted in their growth and unskilled in the Word!
He didn’t say they weren’t saved. He said they were children. The fact that time had passed didn’t mean they’d grown! See, someone could be saved for years, decades even, and never stop drinking spiritual milk. We could live saved but never grow and mature into the believers God intends us to be. Let’s refuse to live like that!
We grow by consuming the Word of God like the bread of life that it is. We grow by spending time in the presence of God and learning to hear His voice. We grow by being equipped by those God has given to build up His body. All of those things require a choice on our part! One prayer of salvation won’t cause us to grow up; it will just allow us to be born into His kingdom. From there, we have to mature.
The church is absolutely essential to growth and we won’t grow to a greater maturity than our connection to the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-16 says,
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
I know that is a long passage of scripture, but I’d encourage you to read it again. The fivefold ministry is for the building up of the body, so we can all grow up “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” That’s maturity. The fivefold ministry is to help every member of the body of Christ to grow into mature believers, so they aren’t children “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” As we are connected to the body of Christ, and His life is flowing in us, we will grow up in every way into Him who is the head!
We also can’t grow if we’re focused only on ourselves and not the body. Look at the end of that verse. It says, “when each part is working properly, [it] makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” One part of the body can’t grow separately from the head or the other body parts. Every part of the body must be connected and functioning correctly for it to be healthy! Think about it. If a limb gets frostbite, the only option is to remove it. Otherwise, the loss of blood-flow will cause the dead flesh to infect the rest of the body We only stay alive connected to His body and abiding in Him! Our life comes from His blood. He is the head and we are the body and it’s only in Him that we have life. Ephesians 2:22 confirms this saying,
“In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
To conclude this week, I really just want to remind you that you are an eternal being, created for a supernatural life in Christ Jesus. We aren’t meant to look or act like the world. When we are born again, we are translated to the Kingdom of God (Colossian 1:13-14) and then we have the privilege of carrying that kingdom every place we go. We are born again into His kingdom as spiritual children, but that is not how we’re to remain. As we are connected to the body of Christ and determined to grow up in Him, we will become the mature believers He created us to be! Time is not something to fear, because we’ll live for eternity. However, it is something to use wisely, because every choice we make is a seed that affects eternity. This week, I encourage you to choose to grow up. As we are built up in Him, we will see the Kingdom of God come like we never have before!
Aging is a result of the passage of time and while we can address its effects, there’s nothing we can do to slow it down. This is a concern for more people that you’d think. The anti-aging market in the U.S. was valued at over 17 billion dollars in 2022 (You can google, if you don’t believe me). However, for all of that money spent, no one successfully added one day to their lives. If you’re alive, you’re aging!
However, have you ever thought about time’s effect on your eternal soul? While your body ages, your spirit does not. We do get closer to the time we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ, but our soul doesn’t age, like our body does. It is eternal and every human being is aware of that truth on some level. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says “He has put eternity into man’s heart.” This isn’t easy to wrap our minds around, but the time we will spend in our bodies is but a moment in comparison to eternity. How much more important then, is our spiritual growth than anything else? 1 Timothy 4:8 says,
“While bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”
With that in mind, we should spend much more time focused on our “spiritual training” than our physical. Now, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take care of our bodies, but we should focus on the part of us that will live for eternity!
A physical body will mature by the natural growth process as long as it has what it needs to perform the functions of life (food, water, air). However, a spirit does not. Your spirit won’t grow and mature just because time passes. Spiritual growth and maturity are a choice.
Throughout the scriptures, the idea of “growing” spiritually is referenced multiple times. More than one New Testament writer compared new Christians to spiritual “babies” and emphasized the importance of growing up! 1 Peter 2:2 says,
“Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up into salvation.”
Hebrews 5:12-14 says,
“For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
That is such a powerful and sobering scripture. Look at what it says, again: “By this time you ought to be teachers…” If they had taken the time to nourish their spirits and grow, they would have already matured. However, they didn’t. They were spiritual children, unnaturally stunted in their growth and unskilled in the Word!
He didn’t say they weren’t saved. He said they were children. The fact that time had passed didn’t mean they’d grown! See, someone could be saved for years, decades even, and never stop drinking spiritual milk. We could live saved but never grow and mature into the believers God intends us to be. Let’s refuse to live like that!
We grow by consuming the Word of God like the bread of life that it is. We grow by spending time in the presence of God and learning to hear His voice. We grow by being equipped by those God has given to build up His body. All of those things require a choice on our part! One prayer of salvation won’t cause us to grow up; it will just allow us to be born into His kingdom. From there, we have to mature.
The church is absolutely essential to growth and we won’t grow to a greater maturity than our connection to the body of Christ. Ephesians 4:11-16 says,
“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
I know that is a long passage of scripture, but I’d encourage you to read it again. The fivefold ministry is for the building up of the body, so we can all grow up “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” That’s maturity. The fivefold ministry is to help every member of the body of Christ to grow into mature believers, so they aren’t children “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.” As we are connected to the body of Christ, and His life is flowing in us, we will grow up in every way into Him who is the head!
We also can’t grow if we’re focused only on ourselves and not the body. Look at the end of that verse. It says, “when each part is working properly, [it] makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.” One part of the body can’t grow separately from the head or the other body parts. Every part of the body must be connected and functioning correctly for it to be healthy! Think about it. If a limb gets frostbite, the only option is to remove it. Otherwise, the loss of blood-flow will cause the dead flesh to infect the rest of the body We only stay alive connected to His body and abiding in Him! Our life comes from His blood. He is the head and we are the body and it’s only in Him that we have life. Ephesians 2:22 confirms this saying,
“In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.”
To conclude this week, I really just want to remind you that you are an eternal being, created for a supernatural life in Christ Jesus. We aren’t meant to look or act like the world. When we are born again, we are translated to the Kingdom of God (Colossian 1:13-14) and then we have the privilege of carrying that kingdom every place we go. We are born again into His kingdom as spiritual children, but that is not how we’re to remain. As we are connected to the body of Christ and determined to grow up in Him, we will become the mature believers He created us to be! Time is not something to fear, because we’ll live for eternity. However, it is something to use wisely, because every choice we make is a seed that affects eternity. This week, I encourage you to choose to grow up. As we are built up in Him, we will see the Kingdom of God come like we never have before!
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