Growing in Jesus

Last weekend my children and grandchildren were here. Every time I see my grandchildren it seems that they have grown a foot each. That is what healthy children do; they grow. Healthy Christians are also to grow. We are to grow spiritually as children of God just as children who are healthy grow physically.

One of the biggest scandals of the church is complacency. Many people in the church think that once they have experienced salvation based on Jesus’ death and resurrection that they are finished. Salvation is in reality the beginning, not the end.

The heart of what it means to be saved is being freed from the penalty of sin and death; receiving eternal life; and, in between conversion and death, being formed into the image of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 3:18

And we all, with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

Salvation begins with being freed from the penalty of sin and has to lead to being transformed more and more into the image of Jesus. That transformation is spiritual growth.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing the Holy Spirit to form us more and more into the image of Jesus.

Paul talks about how God enabled his growth in Philippians 3:13-14. He writes, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Paul is not content to just stay where he is and rest on what God has used him to do in the past. He wants to look toward the future and continue to grow in his relationship with Jesus.

What are some things that we can do in our lives to cooperate with God and be empowered by Him to grow?

1.   Let God make His desires into the reality of your life.  

Psalm 37:4

Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Delight here means to immerse yourself in God. We are to make what God desires our desires. If our desires are not God’s desires, then God does not guarantee to fulfill them in our lives.

Growing spiritually means letting God transform our desires to become His desires.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God make His desires your desires.

2.   Be empowered to put away whatever in your life is not pleasing to God.

Hebrews 12:1

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.

There are things that hinder us from growing spiritually. Sin hinders us. But there are other things that are not sin that hinder us from growing spiritually. Wherever it is, we are to get rid of it.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God remove from our lives whatever is hindering us from growing spiritually.

3.   Make Jesus the focus of your life.

Hebrews 12:2

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

We day by day focus on Jesus, listening to and obeying Him.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is making Jesus the focus on all that we do.

4.   Let the Holy Spirit fill you.

Ephesians 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is in the life of every believer and He will continually fill us if we open our lives up to Him.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting the Holy Spirit continually fill us and empower us to do God’s will.

5.   Expect God to work in your life and through your life and show grace to others.

Romans 12:3

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

God’s grace has been given to us. His grace will enable us to do God’s will. God’s grace is to be shown to others. We let God’s grace build us up and let that grace flow from us to others.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is letting God’s grace grow you and passing that grace on to others.

Seek to grow in Jesus day by day.

Growing in Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                           Joe