Are You Growing in Grace?

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.”

 

The Father’s Joy

As a father, it’s a pleasure watching my daughter grow and emerge – it’s an incredible experience. This feeling is no different with God, our heavenly Father. It’s the Father’s joy to see us grow in His grace.

Virtue (excellent character), knowledge, self-control, steadfastness (patience), godliness, brotherly affection (caring for others) and love are all nature of God we are called to add to our lives (and grow in them).

The Christian life is a journey; a marathon, not a sprint. God knows we need these qualities to reach the finish line as winners.

Our faith calls for growth and progress. Growth, however, doesn’t just happen. Spiritual and personal growth is a conscious decision. It’s a personal responsibility – to seek and pursue it.

Two-Step Action to Grow in Grace

• Desire: Change begins with a deep desire. The process of ‘supplementing’ your faith begins with a desire – a holy discontent for more of God. To add virtue to your faith, desire virtue. To grow in the knowledge of God, desire to know Him. Be discontent with average, get uncomfortable with convenience and pursuit can begin.

• Pursue: That’s right – the other end of desire is pursuit. Do the work required for you to grow. When I spoke to my students recently, I challenged them with key steps I took to achieve academic excellence. But what I said would make no difference until they put it to work. Same applies to every area of our lives that needs growth.

It’s OK to dream but until you take action, change will never happen. Click here to share.

 

We make God proud of His investments in us when we pursue the growth necessary to live purposefully.

How are you pursuing personal growth in your life today? What tools do you use and have found to be helpful to your spiritual growth? Please share your thoughts.