Spiritual Growth

by D. Smith, Lerwick | Category: General | Apr 1971

Growth is necessary to both physical and spiritual maturity. In this short article I am concerned with spiritual growth. Every believer is foreordained to be conformed to the image of God's Son (Rom. 8:29,30) and when at His coming we see Him we shall be like Him (1 John 3:2). It is possible that because of his life and conduct a believer may meet the Lord with a sense of shame, nevertheless, the Lord will perfect His purpose to "fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory" (Phil. 3:21). This ultimate design God has revealed to His own in order to encourage spiritual development in their present lives. To this end the ascended Christ endowed men with particular gifts "for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the Body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a full-grown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Eph. 4:12,13).

Two things necessary to growth are food and exercise, and both are prescribed for the children of God. Peter in writing to the elect sojourners of the Dispersion exhorts them, "As newborn babes, long for the spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby unto salvation" (1 Pet. 2:2). Milk is nourishment which God has provided for men as well as for most other living creatures, and thus is a fitting metaphor for the word of God which is so necessary to every believer. There is no substitute for the spiritual milk - the Holy Scriptures.

It is impossible for a child of God to develop spiritually without feeding on God's word and meditating therein day by day. The God-breathed Scriptures alone can give the necessary -sustenance and strength to the new born soul. We can learn the value of God's word by considering what it meant to godly men in days gone by. Job treasured it more than his necessary food (Job 23:12). The psalmist wrote, "The law of Thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver" (Psalm 119:72), while to the sorrowful and afflicted Jeremiah God's word was the joy and the rejoicing of his heart (Jer. 15:16).

The Scriptures are a feast of heavenly manna for all God's children, yet some waste their precious time imbibing the trivial trash issuing from the press in the form of comic papers, magazines and novels. The young believer should be specially careful lest his mind be corrupted by such rubbish.

As a child develops, more solid foods than milk become necessary. Likewise, the believer is expected to develop and not to remain in a state of spiritual infancy as did some of the saints in Corinth to whom Paul wrote "as unto babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with meat; for ye were not yet able to bear it: nay, not even now are ye able" (1 Cor. 3:1,2). Their infantile state was evident in the way they were behaving. Carnality, jealousy and strife are always indicative of spiritual weakness.

It was a grief to the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews that the saints to whom he wrote, believers who had come to know God's house and rest, and who by reason of the time ought to have been teachers, were, in fact, such as had need "again that someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of solid food. For every one that partaketh of milk is without experience of the word of righteousness; for he is a babe. But solid food is for full-grown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil" (Heb. 5:12-14).

Exercise also is essential to full growth. To use and train our faculties for spiritual attainment is a highly profitable practice. Paul emphasized the importance of this when he wrote to young Timothy, "Exercise thyself unto godliness: for bodily exercise is profitable for a little; but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come" (1 Tim. 4:7,8).

All children of God should exercise themselves unto godliness. Holiness and piety are necessary to all divine service and testimony, and should be characteristic of those who are together in God's house, "For the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. 3:17). God cannot dwell in a house which is defiled and unholy (John 2:16).

The days in which we live show the accuracy of the prophetic description of the last days, for among other things men will be "unholy ... holding a form of godliness" (2 Tim. 3:2,5).

May God give us grace to hold "the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness" (Titus 1:1), and "press on unto full growth" (Heb. 6:1, RVM).

D. Smith, Lerwick | Apr 1971
General