Growth in Christlike virtues such as obedience, patience, courage, the process, but fidelity means that we get up and return to Jesus each time we fall. . the people of God instead of enjoying the passing pleasures of sin.
Table of contents
- 25 Encouraging Bible Verses About Journey
- Bible Verses About Growth
- Why should God let you into Heaven?
- Growth Is Not the Goal
This is a personal growth question. This is a motive question. If people mattered to Jesus, they should matter to us. This is a passion question.
25 Encouraging Bible Verses About Journey
If you go to work only to fulfil process and function, you are effectively retired. Passion gives you advantage and drive. This is a relationship question. Jesus only chose 12 people, and He had an inner circle of 3. This is an effectiveness question. Focus on what only you can offer to a situation. This is a mission question. Longterm influence is determined by the seeds you sow. Your mission is to add value to others.
Dialogue at deeper levels displays the beginning of a more meaningful friendship. This takes time, good listening, thoughtful questions, and being vulnerable and open ourselves first. This move can come before or after the next one sharing the gospel. Community and gospel really undergird and influence this whole sequence, but the two are unique enough to make them their own steps.
As your neighbor or coworker or classmate learns you are a Christian and begins to have meaningful conversations with you, introduce him to your Christian community.
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That should be your church family. Jesus taught that people will know that the Father sent him by our unity with one another John And Jesus tells us that people will know we are his disciples by our love for one another John But those apart from Jesus will not see our love for one another and our gospel unity in the midst of our differences without being exposed to our shared life as a church. So, find ways to bring them into your community. When they come around, edify and minister to your church family like you would if your non-Christian friends were not there.
No other community on earth shares life like the Christian church. If you have had meaningful conversations with your now friend and introduced him to your community, he has probably heard the gospel already, at least in small ways. He has probably heard a few sentences here and there about Jesus — his life, death, and resurrection — and what he means for you or your church family.
At some point, sooner than later, we need to clearly explain the gospel to others and call them to respond. What is the gospel? Whatever approach you use, choose one concise way to share the core message of the gospel. Around this time you can offer to read the Bible with them , which will open up more gospel conversations. If they have understood the gospel, call them to trust in Jesus Christ and turn from their sin. Faith comes by hearing the message about Christ Romans The flip side of faith in Jesus is repentance — abandoning faith in ourselves, our sin, our righteousness, our old way of pursuing life and happiness.
When someone repents from selfishness and sin and trusts in Jesus, he is converted. So, tell him to call on the name of the Lord Romans If converted, he has been transferred from the domain of darkness to the kingdom of the Son Colossians 1: He is a new Christian. Jesus never wants our faith in him to stay private. Truly trusting and following Jesus will be public. Teach him the Bible and theology 2 Timothy 3: Most of all, continue to proclaim Christ to him. Continuing to disciple the convert with the Bible and theology will strengthen his conviction.
When I was in seminary, one of my professors told the story of his grandfather who wanted to cross the icy Susquehanna River at the turn of the century. Since he was unsure of the thickness of the ice, he began to cross gingerly on his hands and knees.
Bible Verses About Growth
When he was about halfway across, he heard a great rumbling sound. Looking over his shoulder, he was embarrassed to see a large wagon drawn by four horses storming past him on the ice! His faith had been weak, but its object was worthy. There is no more trustworthy foundation for our faith than Christ, the Rock and Anchor of our soul. When we place our trust in Him, we can be sure that He will carry us safely to the other side. Knowledge and trust are best displayed in action. Regardless of what we say, it is what we do that will reveal what our hearts truly believe and trust.
Faith in Christ has the property of growing through acts of obedience, and an obedient faith results in a greater knowledge of God. So there is a reciprocal relationship between the faith components of knowledge and action; the better we know Him, the more we want to obey Him, and the more we obey Him, the better we will know Him. Everything hinges on what we trust. If we trust our own wisdom, our hands are too full of ourselves to receive the gifts of God.
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It is only when we empty our hands of self-reliance, self-righteousness, self-pity, and other self-sins that they will be empty enough to receive the life of Christ in us and display His life to others. A few years ago, I attended the funeral of one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known. Several months after giving her life to Christ, Emily Meredith was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
During the next five years, the courage, love, hope, and peace she displayed could only be explained by the power of the Holy Spirit in her life. In spite of her ordeal, she was never known to complain even once.
Why should God let you into Heaven?
The Christlike quality of her life made an indelible impact on hundreds of people, and by the age of 21 she had accomplished the purpose for which she was sent and was ready for her heavenly homecoming. While her family grieves her passing, their sorrow is tempered by an unflinching hope in the promises and character of God 1 Thessalonians 4: Hope is a powerful biblical motivator because it is related to the promise of long-term gain. We just observed that faith and hope are linked together; faith takes the risk of commitment before knowledge, and hope gives us the reason for the risks of faith.
Each of the men and women of faith listed in Hebrews 11 understood that God is a rewarder of those who seek Him and risked the temporal in order to gain the eternal. Moses, for example, chose to endure ill-treatment with the people of God instead of enjoying the passing pleasures of sin, because he considered the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward Hebrews Worldly hope tells us to pursue passing pleasures, but biblical hope warns us not to sell ourselves so cheaply.
God calls us to give ourselves to the things that will last and will not disappoint us in the end. If we focus our hearts on the eternal, we will enjoy the temporal as well; but if our primary pursuit is the temporal, we will not only lose the eternal, but also the temporal.
Few people can live for long without some sense of hope. The venerable Bede portrayed human existence without the resurrection as a bird that flies out of complete darkness into a window of a brilliantly lighted banqueting hall, only to dart briefly across the light and music of the hall and fly out another window into the blackness of night. If this earth is all there is, life is a brief episode between two oblivions; it mocks our deepest aspirations and longings for more than this planet seems to offer.
Some existentialists counsel us to accept the idea that life is meaningless and to live with courage in spite of the absurdity of existence. But no one can live consistently with such a hopeless philosophy. Almost everyone we meet lives with some kind of hope, some reason for getting up each morning and going on with life. But it would not take much probing to reveal the shallowness and inadequacy of the things in which most people put their faith and hope.
When men put their hope in money, power, and position for their sense of self-worth and fulfillment, they will discover, as countless others have before, that these things will let them down. When women hope first in their family, their possessions, or their social status to satisfy their longing for security and significance, they too will be disillusioned. Those who know Jesus are by no means immune to the problem of misplaced hope.
Growth Is Not the Goal
Many have slipped into the trap of hoping in Christ for their eternal salvation and hoping in the world for everything else. I believe the reason so many can swallow the camel of eternity and strain at the gnats of the temporal is that this earth seems so real to them while heaven seems so vague and distant.
With this mindset, it takes less faith to trust Christ for the afterlife than it does for this life. Bob Hope once told a story about being in a plane that was struck by lightning. I heard the testimony of an Atlanta businessman who described an experience he had before putting his faith in Christ. He was staying at the Hilton in Las Vegas when a fire broke out in the hotel. Thinking he was going to die, he cried out to God to deliver him.
Hope developed in good circumstances tends to be unreliable because it is untested. But God uses times of adversity and few alternatives to bring us into contact with a hope that will not let us down. The only firm foundation for our hope is the unchanging character of the living God. It is when we find our refuge in Christ that we lay hold of a hope that is an anchor of the soul, a hope that will not disappoint because it is both sure and steadfast Hebrews 6: This biblical hope provides us with stability and direction because it draws us toward the promises of God.
The key to trusting Him is knowing Him, and the key to knowing Him is the time we spend walking with Him day by day. In the same way, the heroes of faith listed in Hebrews 11 welcomed the promises of God from a distance and longed for a reward that was unseen by earthly eyes.
Their faith was the assurance of the things for which they hoped, and the conviction of things not seen Hebrews Paul revealed his heart when he wrote to the saints in Philippi of his longing for completeness in his relationship to Christ: The apostle avoided the morass of complacency and self-satisfaction through his understanding of the spiritual life as a process that leads ever higher and deeper in the personal knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Sustainer of all things in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible Colossians 1: But our calling is higher than this.
Our Lord wants us to lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, so that we can run with endurance the race that is set before us as we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith Hebrews Paul lets us in on a discipline that can revolutionize our lives: We must meet the uncertainties of this world with the certainty of the world to come.
Too many of us allow the present to be dominated by the regrets and the successes of the past. Paul learned the practice of deliberately forgetting the past, not in the sense of blotting out his memory, but by refusing to allow the past to control the present. If he had dwelled on his successes in Judaism, he would have been inclined to put his confidence in the efforts of the flesh rather than the grace of Christ.
If he kept reviewing his failures and shortcomings, he would have been paralyzed by a sense of inadequacy and discouragement. All of us have said and done things we wish we could undo or redo.