Years ago I ordered a couple butternut trees from a greenhouse and had them shipped to our house. When they arrived they were rather small, probably about 8 inch seedlings. So I found a nice place to plant them and made sure that they stayed watered, and waited.
The first two years the trees didn’t grow too much, maybe 6 inches, as the trees began to establish themselves in the surrounding soil, but during the third and fourth years the trees began to grow like crazy, growing over three feet each year! They have since slowed down in their growth, but they have never stopped. They are always growing, just like we need to keep growing as Christians.
1 Peter 2:1-2 “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”
We are like a tree, which when it begins to grow may grow very fast as it soaks up all of those nutrients from the ground, but as it gets older it may begin slow down a bit. But they never fully stop growing. It is a constant growth. When we first become Christians and begin to delve into the scriptures, we will learn many things about our faith, but that doesn’t mean that we will get to a point where we never have anything more to learn or grow in. We may read a passage in the Bible a hundred times, and then suddenly the Holy Spirit reveals something to you that you never understood before, and you grow even more.
The life of a Christian is a growing process. We are not fully polished Christians on day one. We each have our strengths and weaknesses, areas where we need improvement over others. Sometimes you succeed, and sometimes you fail, but if you fail what matters is that you get right back at it and try it again.
So many people expect perfection immediately, but it doesn’t always work that way. It takes practice, dedication, and patience, and the realization that we are imperfect beings, striving for perfection. Always feeding off of God’s Word, growing in our faith.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth;”
Peter wasn’t a full grown Christian immediately either. He had his faults and mistakes along the way. He rebuked the Lord, telling Jesus that the events leading up to His crucifixion would not happen, but he was in turn rebuked by the Lord for this. He denied knowing the Lord at the crucifixion, fulfilling the prophecy that Jesus had told him, even though he had said that he would never deny Christ. Peter was still growing, and although he made mistakes, he grew through them and never did them again.
Paul as well, was always growing. He was always reaching forwards and striving to become better each day.
Philippians 3:12-16 “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.”
My butternut trees didn’t grow to maturity in one day, and even when they do they will never stop growing. They will always have room for more growth, just like us.
In Christ,
Andrew
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 