Every new year we begin to think of new habits we want to adopt in our lives. We’re encouraged to think this way from ads and people. However, let’s think a little differently this year. Don’t just focus on what new habit or goal you want to add. Think of, and identify, things you need to continue doing. There are plants of things you’re doing well right now. Don’t neglect those things or overlook them. Growth happens when we build on a foundation we already have. Be careful not to drop something productive that you’re already doing when you try to introduce something new.
Here are some Bible verses on things we should continue doing.
1. In the same way you received Jesus our Lord and Messiah by faith, continue your journey of faith, progressing further into your union with him!
Colossians 2:6 TPT
2. But as for you, continue in the truths that you were taught and firmly believe.
2 Timothy 3:14 GNT
3. But we will [continue to] devote ourselves [steadfastly] to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
Acts 6:4 AMP
4. Don’t envy sinners, but always continue to fear the Lord.
Proverbs 23:17 NLT
5. Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.
When my wife and I first got married, I didn’t trust her intuition. She would say, “I don’t think we should go there.” When I asked her why we shouldn’t, she couldn’t give an answer and would just say she had a feeling. If I really wanted to, then I would make the decision and we would go anyway. Something would happen, and she would be right. Other times, she would come home, talk about an issue she had somewhere, and I would tell her how to solve it. It turned out that most of the time, she just needed to vent or process the situation and didn’t need me to solve it. Over time, I’ve learned to be a better husband in these two areas. I’ve learned to trust her intuition and stay quiet (sometimes). We’re both thankful I’m not the same as when we first got married. I’ve matured in several areas and I’ve still got room to grow.
If growth and maturity are expected in spousal relationships, why would we think it would be any different in our relationship with Jesus? You shouldn’t be in the same place you were when you first believed. Growth and maturity are expected. As you spend time in prayer and reading the Bible, your faith and trust in God should grow. With that growth comes behavioral change on your part. Maturity shows up in different ways in us. Instead of complaining or asking God to remove us from His growth and character development processes, we begin to ask Him for the grace to endure them and for Him to create well developed fruit in our lives through them.instead of ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit to say something to someone, we push past the fear and trust what He says. Each of us have room to grow, and that maturity happens when we trust God more tomorrow than we do today.
Here are some Bible verses on maturing in our faith.
1. So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above. All of us who are spiritually mature should have this same attitude. But if some of you have a different attitude, God will make this clear to you.
Philippians 3:14-15 GNT
2. So let us stop going over the basic teachings about Christ again and again. Let us go on instead and become mature in our understanding. Surely we don’t need to start again with the fundamental importance of repenting from evil deeds and placing our faith in God.
Hebrews 6:1 NLT
3. So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.
2 Peter 1:5-9 MSG
4. But the spiritual man [the spiritually mature Christian] judges all things [questions, examines and applies what the Holy Spirit reveals], yet is himself judged by no one [the unbeliever cannot judge and understand the believer’s spiritual nature].
1 Corinthians 2:15 AMP
5. When your lives bear abundant fruit, you demonstrate that you are my mature disciples who glorify my Father!
To me, one of the coolest miracles is the miracle of a seed. I have packets of them sitting around. Some are for flowers, some are for vegetables and some are for trees. They can sit inside their packet for years and nothing will happen. However, when I plant them at the right time of year, the miracle begins. In the dark, wet earth, something in the seed wakes up and it begins to come apart as a small shoot makes its way out of it. That shoot pushes back the ground all around it and somehow knows to go upward in search for light. It continues growing in the proper conditions until it replicates in some form the plant or tree that produced it. Then, it produces its own seeds so that another generation can grow.
When I look at an acorn next to an oak, I can’t help but look up and ask God, “How do you fit an entire tree in this little nut?” When I think about it, He does the same thing with us. Each of us have an incredible potential inside of us waiting for the right conditions in order to grow and develop into something incredible. We all have hidden potential that is waiting to be discovered, but it needs the right conditions in order to start growing. Those conditions are usually dark times in our lives where we’re in over our heads and aren’t quite sure which way is up. The world around us seems to be pressing in on ever side, yet out of that, God births things in us that we didn’t know were there.
2 Peter 1:3 says, “Everything we could ever need for life and godliness has already been deposited in us by his divine power” (TPT). Just like every sin lives in you waiting for the right conditions to come out, every good thing lives in you waiting on the right conditions to come out. Don’t run from the pressures of hard times in your life because those are the places where God grows these deposits in your life. You have an incredible potential beyond what you can imagine. Just like a giant tree begins with a small seed, there is a giant in you waiting to come out. As you mature and grow, you will begin to reproduce other people in the faith. You will provide shade for them to grow in, when you have roots that go down deep into God’s Word. Isaiah 61:3 says, “In their righteousness, they (you) will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory” (NLT). There is a tree inside of you waiting to grow.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 