Growing up spiritually is not
something that just happens over night, or the minute that you are born again
through faith in Christ. It is a process
that takes place as we spend time listening to the voice of the Lord in His Word,
yielding ourselves to be taught by Him. As we learn to apply His thoughts,
words and deeds in our own life, He is molding us step by step, more and more
into His image by the power of His Holy Spirit. Each individual believer begins this journey
as a “spiritual” baby in the Lord. Sad
to say, some stay infants and never really start to take the baby steps that
would at least help us become spiritual toddlers. We will never reach full
maturity – completion (sinlessness in love in our glorified bodies in the new
world when we see Him face to face) while we are on this Earth, but if we truly
want to taste and see the goodness of the Lord, we must first be willing to
draw near to Him that we may be taught by Him.
He has promised to continue the perfecting of us, molding us into new
creations, as we yield ourselves to Him.
You know Jesus, our Savior and Lord,
is also our true example of what God had originally designed us to be. When He was but a child of perhaps about 12
years old, His parents took Him into the city. During their trip back home,
they discovered that He was not with them.
They eventually found Him discussing the scriptures with the elders in
the synagogue. When His parents conveyed
the anxiety He had caused them because they did not know where He was, He said
He thought that surely they would have known that He would be about doing the
will of His Father. What had He been
doing? The Word tells us that He was discussing
the Scriptures with such wisdom and knowledge, in spite of His tender young
age, that He amazed even the elders as they listened to Him. This incident demonstrated that He was
already well versed in the scriptures; however it wasn’t that He knew the words
alone, but that His knowledge of them was filled with power from above. He was the Word made manifest to us in the
flesh. By example, He showed us the
importance of being equipped properly for our journey of growing in faith, for
faith comes by hearing the Word of God.
If He, the Son of God, studied and stored the Word of God within Him,
how much more important is it that we ourselves should follow His example in so
doing? Who of us, when going on a
journey, would choose to embark on that journey without first being properly
equipped?
My own spiritual growth has not always
been an uninterrupted journey. Neither
have I always purposely made sure that I was well equipped for the
journey. I was very blessed in that my
parents made sure that I was in church where I could receive the nurture and
admonition of the Lord by hearing and feeding upon God’s Word as a little
child. I know messages about Hell these
days are not considered to be very popular; however, I remember hearing about
the reality of both Heaven and Hell even at the tender age of four years
old. Jesus was real, Heaven was real,
and Satan and Hell were real. I knew,
even in my young heart, that Heaven was where I wanted to go because it was a
wonderful place to be. I knew that I would actually get to be with Jesus when I
did go to Heaven. I knew that the Devil
was an awful being, one that I didn’t want to have anything to do with.
Just going to church was not my only
access to knowledge about Jesus.
Someone, I believe it was my parents, gave me a book of Bible stories
that became my favorite book even before I could read. The pictures in it spoke volumes to me. Two of those pictures became embedded in my
memory like a slide show that would be run and rerun throughout the coming
years of my life. One of the pictures
illustrated the loving tenderness that Jesus showed when He said, “Suffer the
little children to come unto me.” I
could just imagine myself on His lap and how wonderful it would be to be so
near to Him and hear His gentle voice.
Another picture was the one illustrating “I stand at the door and
knock.” I didn’t understand, until years
later, that He was standing at the door of my heart waiting for me to open it
up and ask Him to come in to be my personal Savior and Lord. When I did ask Him to come into my heart,
that picture would loom into my memory and I would realize, more than once, the
true significance of Him waiting patiently for me to invite Him to come
in. Later too, it would help to make
even more real how the Holy Spirit came into my heart and thus the Lord would
never leave me or forsake me, and would be in me and with me to help, teach,
and guide me throughout my life. Without knowing it, I was learning Scriptures
through the pictures and stories that went with them.
As a little girl, going to vacation Bible School
Our Daddy worked long hard hours. But one of the sweetest memories I have of
him was how he would often come in to wrap me in my covers and say prayers at
night. It was usually the child’s prayer
that went like this:
“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul
to keep.
If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul
to take.
God bless..(Mama, Daddy and continuing on with all the
names
of family and other loved ones). Amen.”
At
times, I remember thinking about the part-“if I should die before I wake.” I don’t recall being afraid of the dying part
because it would mean that I would go to be with Jesus. Oh, if only we could always have the faith of
a little child to take Him at His Word and not doubt! We also said prayers at the dinner time. During those years, we still had the blessing
of praying the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of each school day. At some of the schools that I attended, I
even had Bible time to learn lessons and scriptures. Of course, we further learned to pray in
church. Seeds were being planted, and I
was being taught the value of talking with God in prayer. It was another “tool” that I was given to be
properly equipped for my journey of growing spiritually.
As I have continued on in my journey,
I have learned and experienced for myself why the Scriptures are such an
invaluable tool to equip myself as a believer for my personal journey of faith
in the Lord. There is a part in the
Bible that speaks about the importance of making sure that the storehouse is
always kept full to guard against times of famine. At first glance, this seems to speak of
earthly food and other necessary goods.
But then upon reflection, it could just as easily refer to spiritual
“food”. You know Jesus said that man
does not live by bread alone but by every word from the mouth of the Lord. The scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit
from the beginning of time, are meant to lead and guide us into all truth. The Lord tells us that His Word is given for
our instruction, correction that we should be made fit and equipped for all
good works. If we are not rooted and
grounded in His Word, we will be easily tossed around and will believe any lie
instead of the truth.
Continuing the journey of life is
meant to be our preparation for the best part of our life in eternity, when we
will truly be made complete and whole as we were originally designed by God to
be. It is that process of learning to
grow up in the Lord, being transformed by the word by the power of the Holy
Spirit. It is as He says ‘renewing our
mind by the washing of the water of the word’ that we might be made more and
more into His image. He gives us a new
heart that would hunger and thirst after Him and long to become all that is
pleasing in His sight. This is what the
Bible calls The Great Salvation Plan in Chapter 2 verse 3 from Hebrews, which
prepares us for our eternal life with the Lord when we are restored to a
glorified body in the new world on the new Earth. As He, Jesus is, so shall we be. Choose this day to walk with the Lord
through the gift of the Holy Spirit, our Comforter and guide. O taste and see that the Lord is good as you
journey through the word of God becoming properly equipped for each new
day. “Jesus loves me (and you), this I
know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Virginia
Rahn
Ginger
Nov.
1, 2010
(Revised
Feb. 13, 2014)
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