Faith and Commitment Must Be Grown
by Gary Henry
via WordPoints.com
"And all of us... are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another" (II Corinthians 3:18 AMP).
For Christians, the goal is to be transformed into the image of Christ. As Paul indicates in this text, this transformation is underway. Bit by bit, we are becoming more and more like Him “in ever increasing splendor.”
The longer I live, the more I’m impressed with the “daily-ness” of life in Christ. Yes, there are singular moments of commitment and big change, including the greatest of these when we put on Christ in baptism and turn away from our past life. We are grateful for these wonderful moments. But “walking in Christ” is, for the most part, a matter of practicing “little” things on “ordinary” days, the days when nothing happens except the faithful doing of life’s daily duties.
Growth is an organic process. As with living things in nature, spiritual growth occurs incrementally, usually over a long period. We can’t rush it, and neither can we neglect working and cultivating during the growing season. No farmer can succeed by procrastinating, goofing off all summer, and then trying to do everything just before the harvest. Growth processes don’t work that way.
The farmer’s crop grows at such a slow pace that the difference from one day to the next may be so small he can’t see it. Similarly, we may not see our spiritual progress as it unfolds. But like the farmer, we keep cultivating — doing what we know to do and learning to do more. Praying, studying the Scriptures, and obeying what we’re learning, we trust that the results will be what the Lord has promised: “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:9).
Regarding the building of trust, John Gottman wrote that it “is not a single vow but a thousand small turnings.” The same thing is true of commitments. Decisive moments and great promises are exciting, but the growth that takes us toward heaven comes from daily “small turnings” in which we turn away from the world and turn to Christ, over and over again. Eventually, in His good time, He will have completely replaced the person we used to be, but it is the slow, patient work of all our days, one at a time.
"[Christ is] killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has" (C. S. Lewis).
