GROWING OR MARKING TIME?

 We ought always to thank God for you, brothers, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love every one of you has for each other is increasing.

2 Thessalonians 1:3 (NIV)

                Through my daily devotions, I have been challenged with the question, am I growing in my faith, or am I just marking time? It is an important question. We can all get stuck on our journey of faith. We get to a certain level of maturity and then we just camp out there.

                An article from Psychology Today encapsulates the idea that at a certain point many of us stop learning and begin to coast.

 Most of us are lucky enough to start life out as learners and to stay active learners until we are into young adulthood. We look at our children and know that their primary job in life is to grow, develop, and learn. There is an entire world of history, grammar, science, and math for them to absorb. Children begin as empty vessels meant to gorge themselves on this feast of knowledge.

Alas, at some point we change. We stop learning. We move from being learners to being knowers. Strangely, being someone who ‘knows’ can interfere with being someone who ‘learns’. Paradoxically, the better we were at learning, the worse this problem can be. Why does knowing get in the way of learning? We constantly need to keep learning regardless of how much we knew at some point in time. But identifying ourselves as an expert, or knowing that others identify us as an expert can make this tricky.

Psychology Today June 19, 2012 by Dr. Matthew D. Lieberman

                What is true in a general sense is often true when it comes to our faith. We get to the point where we “know” the Bible. We know the stories, we know the basic truths, and we stop exploring. We get stuck. When this happens, our faith stops transforming our lives. We settle for knowing the facts without applying the truth to our lives.

                I have been exploring the Bible in new ways through The Bible Project. In preparation for preaching a series of messages from the book of Ephesians, I went through an on-line course on that book offered by The Bible Project. My eyes were opened to things I had not seen or understood before. It changed the way that I approached preaching Ephesians.

                When I was a student at Wheaton College, every class I took stressed the need to commit to being a life-long learner. I have strived to live that out. But I also realize that just filling my mind with new and interesting facts is not enough. I need to grow in my faith, to learn to put what I know into practice. This is where I have been challenged recently. I am actually growing in my faith or am I just going through the motions?

                Everything that is living grows. When it stops growing it dies. But not all growth is the same. I have some fruit trees in my yard and I am learning how to care for them. One of the things I have to do, if I want to grow good fruit, is prune back much of the growth. I have to do this so that the tree will put its energy into producing fruit and not just producing more leaves. There is a lesson here for me. There are many ways that I can grow emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. There is value in all of these, but am I putting my energy into growing leaves or producing fruit.

                In Galatians 5, Paul talks about the kind of fruit that we should be producing in our lives. He calls it the fruit of the Spirit.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23 (NIV) I need to ask myself if I am growing in these areas. Am I actually producing fruit.

                In Colossians 1, Paul gives us another category of growth. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. Colossians 1:10-12 (NIV)

                Again, in Philippians Paul challenges us to grow in our faith. And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11 (NIV)

                Asking myself regularly if I am truly growing in my faith is an important question to ponder. Is my life bearing fruit or just producing mor leaves? What kind of fruit am I producing? Am I bearing good fruit? I am walking closer to Jesus today? Am I loving and serving others better today than in the past? Am I truly growing in my faith or just marking time?

It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-13 (NIV)