Chapter 28 How to Grow in Day 23

How to Grow in Day 23 God wants us to grow in every way...Christlike. (Ephesians 4:15a, Msg) We are no longer children. (From Ephesians 4:14a, modern Chinese translation) God wants you to grow up. Heavenly Father's goal is for you to mature and develop the attributes of Jesus Christ.Sadly, there are millions of Christians who are only aging but not growing up, spiritually stuck in diaper-wearing, doll-shoe babies forever, because they have no intention of growing up. Spiritual growth does not happen automatically, it requires deliberate effort to achieve it.You have to want to grow, be determined to grow, strive to grow, and keep growing.Discipleship is the process of seeking to be more like Christ, and it always begins with a decision.Jesus calls us, let us respond: “Jesus said to him, “Come and be my disciple.” Martha got up and followed him. "

When the first disciples chose to follow Jesus, they didn't fully understand the implications of that decision, they simply responded to Jesus' invitation.This is what it takes to get started: a decision to be a disciple. Nothing will affect your life more than the commitment choices you make.Your commitment choices can build you or break you; but either way, it will define you.Tell me what you commit to, and I can tell you who you will be in twenty years; we are what we commit to. It is at this point of commitment that most people miss the purpose God gave them.Many people are afraid to commit to anything and just go with the flow through life.Some people adopt a noncommittal attitude when faced with various contradictory values, resulting in many setbacks and a mediocre life.Others give themselves entirely to worldly goals, the pursuit of wealth and fame, only to find disappointment and bitterness.Every choice has eternal consequences, so you better choose wisely.Peter once warned: "Since everything around us will melt away, you should know how to live godly and holy lives."

God's Responsibility and Your Responsibility Christlikeness is the result of making decisions like Christ and relying on His Spirit to help you make those decisions.Once you decide that you are serious about being Christlike, you must start doing things in a new way.You have to let go of some old habits, develop some new ones, and deliberately change the way you think.You can be sure that the Holy Spirit will help you in these changes.The Bible says, "Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to do his good pleasure."

This scripture explains two aspects of spiritual growth: "make" and "operate". "Make" is your responsibility, and "operate" is God's role.Spiritual growth is a collaboration between you and the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is not only with us, but also works with us. This passage to believers is not about how to get saved, but how to grow.It doesn't say you have to "earn" salvation because Jesus has done it all and there is nothing more you can do.When you "exercise" your physical workout, you are building your body through exercise, not trying to get a body.When you want to "make" a puzzle, you already have all the little pieces, you just have to put them together.When a farmer "cultivates" the land, he does not sow the land, but cultivates the existing land.God has given you a new life, and your responsibility is to practice hard "with trembling", that is, to take your spiritual growth seriously!People who underestimate their own spiritual growth show that they do not understand its eternal implications (see Days 4 and 5).

Replace your autopilot To change your life, you must first change the way you think.There is a thought behind everything you do; every action is driven by a belief, and every action is driven by a certain state of mind.Long before psychologists discovered these laws, God said this: "Be careful what you think, for life is shaped by thoughts." Imagine that you are speeding through the lake on a speedboat. The speedboat is operating on an automatic pilot and is heading east. If you decide to change to the west, there are two ways: one is to hold the steering wheel tightly and turn it as hard as possible to force the speedboat to go in the opposite direction. And go.With your willpower, you may beat the autopilot, but you will feel constant resistance, your arms will eventually tire from the pressure, you will let go of the steering wheel, and the speedboat will immediately be steered by the autopilot again , to resume eastward travel.

It's like this when you try to change your life with willpower, and you say, "I'm going to force myself to eat less... exercise more,... stop being sloppy and late." Indeed, will Force can bring about short-term change, but because you haven't dealt with the root of the problem first, you end up creating constant inner stress.Such changes come unnaturally, and you quickly give up, stop dieting, stop exercising, and soon everything is back to normal. There's a better, easier way to change direction: change your autopilot—your way of thinking.The Bible says, "Let God change the way you think and transform you into a new man." The first step in your spiritual growth is to change your thinking.Change always begins with the mind. The way you think determines how you feel; how you feel affects your actions.Paul said, "There must be a spiritual renewal of your thoughts and attitudes."

To be like Christ, one must develop a Christlike mind.The New Testament calls this change of heart repentance, which literally translates from Greek to "change your mind."Every time you change your thoughts and replace them with God's thoughts, whether about yourself, about sin, about God, about people, about life, about the future, about anything else, you are repenting, you have changed On the eyes and views of Christ. We are commanded to "think in the way of Christ Jesus."This can be broken down into two parts: The first part is to stop immature, self-serving thoughts.The Bible says, "No longer be a child in your mind. But be a babe in your evil, and a man in your mind." Babies are utterly selfish by nature. They think only of themselves and their needs. They are powerless. To give, only to receive; this is an immature idea.It's a pity that many people only stay in this kind of thinking.The Bible says that selfish thoughts are the root of evil: "He who lives according to his sinful nature thinks only of those things that satisfy his sinful desires."

The second part is to start thinking maturely, which is to shift the focus from yourself to others.In his great passage on true love, Paul concludes that being human is a sign of maturity: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child, and when I became a man I dropped childish things. " Many people today think that spiritual maturity is based on how much you know about the Bible and doctrine.Knowledge is one of the criteria for measuring spiritual maturity, but it is not the whole.The Christian life is much more than doctrine and belief, but also behavior and character.Our actions should be consistent with our teachings, and our faith must be backed up by Christ-like actions.

Christianity is not a religion or a philosophy; it is a relationship, a way of life.At the heart of this lifestyle is thinking of others, not yourself, like Jesus did.The Bible says, "We should think of others' good, and help them by doing what pleases them. Even Christ did not please Himself." Thinking of others is central to Christian character and is the best sign of spiritual growth.This may seem counterintuitive, uncultural, rare, and difficult; but fortunately we are not helpless: "God has given us His Spirit, so we think differently from what the world thinks." .” In the next few chapters, we’ll explore the tools the Holy Spirit uses to help us grow.