Keep Growing in Christ

By Pastor Doug Cox

The day is coming soon when everyone who has responded positively to the gospel of grace will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that receiving Christ was the greatest and best decision they ever made in their lifetime. At the moment, we love Him by faith. Like Peter says “whom having not seen you love….” (1 Peter 1:8) But the day is coming when we will see Him face to face in His glory and the love and appreciation and revelation of His greatness will explode.

It is important between now and then that we maintain ourselves spiritually and commit ourselves to grow into spiritual maturity. To help us on our way we can learn from others, like the church at Corinth. They started out well. They responded positively to the gospel of grace and had been wonderfully saved. Paul taught them many spiritual truths and expected them to take hold and apply that truth to their lives.

Paul expected them to grow in their faith and become mature believers. He expected them to develop in themselves, the mind of Christ. But instead, they became carnal. Sexual impurity and division infiltrated their ranks, and they remained spiritual infants because of it. Paul writes, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ.” (1 Corinthians 3:1 NKJV)

It can happen to anybody. We can stop pressing in to the Lord after our salvation experience. The Christians at Corinth instead of becoming spiritual giants in the faith, sadly remained spiritual babies by letting their carnal nature dominate. They only had an appetite for simple gospel teachings and couldn’t handle the weightier spiritual issues, the meat of God’s Word. (See Hebrews 5:12). This resulted in their being very little difference between them and an unsaved, natural man.

It’s easy for us to look back and criticize them for their failure but instead we should evaluate our own Christian walk. We should ask the Lord to help us overcome our carnal nature. To help us grow into spiritual maturity and to help us keep growing in Christ so we can make a difference in our world for the sake of the gospel.