[1 John Series 7] Growing Up… SpirituallySample

There is more

By reading these meditations, chances are you want to grow spiritually. Hopefully, nobody forced you to read this. Something inside tells you, “There is more.”

We all need to grow spiritually. Our walk with God is not linked to our natural age. Becoming older doesn’t mean we are more spiritually mature. Some teenagers are more spiritually mature than their parents and vice versa.

John is going to show us, through the symbolic representations of a child, a young man and a father, different stages of spiritual maturity. Now, as we grow older, shouldn’t we be growing more spiritually mature at the same time? Shouldn’t we be different after being walking with the Lord for years than when we just started?

Imagine a graph where the vertical values represent obedience and the horizontal values represent faith. Hopefully, our faith is drawing our obedience up. We are not perfect, but we are moving up and to the right. When we don’t have faith, we take a step of obedience and our faith follows. When we really don’t want to obey, we will take a step of faith and trust God. This is how we begin to walk with God: we step in obedience and step in faith.

Little children

The words from the Greek translated “little children” mean “born ones.” In his Gospel, John, this same author, talks about being born again. He is addressing those who have trusted Christ as their Savior.

Our relationship with God starts with forgiveness through Jesus Christ. To obtain forgiveness, we first need humility, because we must admit that we have sinned. Why we wouldn’t want to admit that we have sinned? Basically, because of pride.

We must realize that we have not done everything perfectly or lived a holy life—we have sinned. Then we humbly come to the Father we have displeased to ask for forgiveness through Jesus Christ on account of His name. Not on account of our works, nor by going to church, nor by trying to be nicer people.

We admit we will never be able to do more good than bad. Therefore, heaven is based not upon our works; it is based upon His death on the cross and His grace. It is not in ourselves; it is through Jesus Christ. Our relationship with God is formed through forgiveness. We now have a relationship with the Father.