Glimpses of Truth

Good News – A Crying Child

It’s in full swing:  Spring, that is.  Everything is growing.  Farmers are planting those seeds and they are popping up quickly now.  Growth is evident in almost everything you see.

Robert Browning wrote, “Man was made to grow.”  The first essential to growth is ____________!

The apostles continually underscored the need for growth in the spiritual realm.  Peter challenged all Christians to “grow in grace.”

But what is the first essential to growth?

The word grow denotes continuous action.  If we stop growing physically, it is a bad sign, a mark of sickness.  A mother would be alarmed if day after day and week after week her baby showed no sign of growth.  A farmer would be dismayed if his crops never yielded their harvest.  When the human body stops growing, it begins to deteriorate.  Death ultimately results.

But what is the first essential to growth?  Well, we’ve already been talking about it—it’s LIFE.

When a child is born, he cries; that’s good, he’s alive.  If there is life, there’s a world of possibilities awaiting that child.  Where there is no life, all is hopeless.

Drop a stone in the ground, I mean rich soil.  Water it, fertilize it, keep the grass away from it, spray it, do all you can, even use Miracle Gro and follow the instructions on how to care for it, it’s hopeless.  Why?  Try a seed.  Give it the same treatment.  It will spring up, grow, produce flowers and fruit.

Well, what’s the difference?  One has life, while the other does not.  Dead things may accumulate, but they cannot grow.  Life is the first prerequisite for growth.

Unless men and women have life from above, all the religious practices and all the religious environments mean nothing.  In fact, they cause a person to rest in a false hope.

Divine life may be imitated, but the imitation is worthless; it is false, unnatural, and mechanical.  False righteousness is self-righteousness, and self-righteousness is not righteousness at all.

The first law of life is expansion.  Grow or decay!  Advance or regress!  Live or die!  There is no time or place to stop growing.  Growth is according to the law of nature and according to God’s plan.

Jesus said, “I am come that ye might have life.”  He also said, “I am life.”

So what is the first essential to growth and maturity?  To receive Him Who is Life.