How Do You Measure Up Spiritually?

“I want to grow until I die,” I heard a man say many years ago. I was stunned – and deeply inspired – by the comment. As a child, I had had a desperate desire to grow since I was what at the time was called a “late bloomer”. I was always behind everyone else in my physical growth. Suffice it to say, I was very short. But clearly this man didn’t need to grow; he was already a few inches over six feet! He wanted to grow spiritually for the rest of his life. And when I heard his comment, I was years past being short; I had grown physically to a fairly average height. Yet it was utterly obvious I had tons of growing to do spiritually. Little did I know the lesson I would come to learn about spiritual growth.

photo in background from pixabay

God created us to grow in His image, but spiritual growth does not necessarily mean we are growing in the image of God. Why? Because we can grow in the ways of this world, or we can grow in the ways of the Lord. And we can easily fall prey – as I did for many years – to the false, deceptive, destructive, and ultimately deadly spiritual paths, false teachers, and false religions so readily available to the vulnerable and gullible and desperate and deceived as I was.

Over the years, I crossed paths with the man who had inspired me with his desire to keep growing until his time on earth is over. Sadly, I learned that he was growing in the ways of the world and of false teaching rather than in the ways of the Lord. Meanwhile, I came out from all the deception I had been under as far as spiritual growth is concerned, repented of the false teaching I had been under, and planted myself solidly in a rock solid relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ and in a daily commitment to study God’s Word and to learn to live according to His ways.

The Old Testament is jam packed with examples of countless people worshiping idols and false gods, practicing false religions, and bringing on themselves the wrath of God for their wicked ways. The New Testament is jam packed with warnings against false teachers, false prophets, and false teaching. And the Bible as a whole could not make it more obvious that while God’s wrath, and judgment, and eternal damnation await those who spend their lives rejecting Christ and worshiping false gods, God’s infinite love and mercy and fellowship and the promise of forgiveness and everlasting life with Him in heaven await those who commit their hearts and lives to the Lord Jesus Christ and to growing spiritually – according to the ways of the Lord!

Do you want to grow spiritually? Are you already growing spiritually? Make sure you are growing in the image of God. Make sure you are growing according to the ways of the Lord. If you are not, do as I have done. Repent of your wrongdoing, place your faith in Christ as Lord, open the Bible, and begin for the first time – or begin afresh – to live your life for Him! 

Gen 1:27  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 

Joh 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

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