Spiritual Growth
Scripture: Colossians 2 v 8-12: "But now ye also put
off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of
your mouth. Lie not to one another seeing that you have put off the old man
with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge
after the image of Him who created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew,
circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ
is all, and in all. Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved,
bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness,
longsuffering."
In this discourse from Paul, he is comparing the 'old
man' to the 'new man'. The old man is the nature of sin we had before we were
baptised in water. It included all the
old shameful things we ever did before this moment and killed them off.
Unfortunately, some people continued to bring that old
man back to life and behaved as if nothing significant had happened in their
lives. Baptism changes everything. It wipes out the backlog of every
regrettable and horrible sin from God's memory and even our love of sin; and
presents us clean and sinless before Him with a fresh start, clothed in the new
man, the nature of Jesus, which hates sin.
Those old sins that try to come back need to be dealt
with by self-discipline and determination to overcome them. Paul says we must
put them off, remove them, so we no longer have the need to lie, cheat, envy,
blaspheme, curse, be angry or malicious, gossip or malign one another.
Through baptism we become equal to every other baptised
saint. God sees no different nationalities, nor status, nor affluence, nor
lifestyle. Being in Jesus is the complete leveller of all that. God sees no
difference between a baptised Jew or a baptised Greek. The covenant of Abraham
of circumcision to separate the Jews from other races is cancelled at the
Cross. The new covenant of grace welcomes every nationality into the Body of
Christ.
Whether you are part of the Bridegroom or part of the
Bride you still need to believe in Jesus and be saved. You still need to
overcome sin and its consequence of death to be a part of Him. God wants to see
us all full of kindness, love, mercy, patience, forgiveness, joy and peace. We
must sort out any feuds, quarrels, divisions and destruction and live as Jesus
did as our example.
Christianity is not something you wear on Sundays to look
holy and pious, it is a complete change of lifestyle. People who say they are
saved but not ready to go further are in denial of Jesus' full impact in their
lives. He is either not real to them or they have forgotten what He has done
for them. Either way they need to remove the pride in their hearts that blocks
them from full salvation.
Wherever we want to save ourselves we encounter a
problem. We are unable to save ourselves and find some vain philosophy that
shows us how. All the self-help programs in the world put together will never
save one human soul. God sent us a Saviour, His only begotten Son, Jesus, to
bring our dead spirits back to life by dying in our place. We were dead in sin.
Cut off forever from our Creator. The Creator had to die for all His creation
to be brought back to life in Him and with Him.
Only He knew that we were all dead. Our bodies and souls
were functioning but our spirit was lifeless. We were easy prey for the enemy
to keep destroying us with his evil corruption. Until the day the Holy Spirit
got our attention by opening our eyes to our sinful state and we asked God's
forgiveness and opened our heart to Jesus. Let us never renege on that
commitment for we will put Him to an open shame.
A song comes to mind: "Through the Blood of Jesus,
His righteousness is like a robe upon you, clothing and covering..." Let
us wear this robe with honour and not shame, never denying the power that
brought us back to life.
Prayer: Father God, You long to see us grow in grace and
become more spiritually alive, more effective in prayer and ministry and in our
love for one another. I pray that we would all take a big step closer to You
today to give You the opportunity to bless us and inspire us to grow more
spiritual. We need to overcome the flesh which likes to dominate our lives and
put those things behind us. In Jesus' name. Amen.