The old plumber was admonishing his young helper, who was always taking coffee breaks. "When I was an apprentice," he said, "we used to lay the first two lengths of pipe -- then the boss would turn on the water and we'd have to stay ahead of it." This is basically a picture of what we are supposed to do as Christians. The Holy Spirit is flowing through us and we must do our very best to grow enough to stay up with the flow of power. Growth is an essential part of every Christian’s life. There must be growth to be the kind of disciple that Jesus desires us to be. We must follow Christ’s example. Luke 2:52 reveals that even Jesus grew while on earth. It says that He “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.” Just because we accept Christ does not mean that we have arrived and that there is no room for improvement or change. In fact it means exactly the opposite. We must grow or die.
Growing Up is Hard to Do
“I don’t want to grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid.” Remember that commercial? Catchy isn’t? However, too many Christians take this as a spiritual theme song. Growing up is hard to do but it must be done. Did you know that a wasp is actually bigger at the time of its birth than at any other time in its life? The wasp actually shrinks as it gets older. Too many of us as Christians are just like the wasp. When we are born (saved) we are excited, on fire, bold, and aggressive in our faith. But as we get older in our walk with Christ, we often shrink and become passive, dull, and reserved.
Sometimes it is easier to just stay the same, or so it seems. The truth is “you pay a price for getting stronger. You pay a price for getting faster. You pay a price for jumping higher. But you also pay a price for staying just the same” (Life’s Little Instruction Book). We are instructed to mature in our faith. That means if we are at the same level spiritually today as we were two months ago then something is terribly wrong. We must purpose in our hearts to allow the Holy Spirit to help us mature on a daily basis.
Profiles of Power
The following men were men of power. Some of them burst on the scene full of power but some of them come into the limelight of Scripture full of weakness and needing to grow up. But the common denominator in all of their lives was the power that each eventually found through the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
John The BaptistWouldn’t you like to be as forceful and bold as John? Most of us would, but we must realize that John paid the price long before we ever see him make a public impact. John found his power by spending several years in the desert and coming into an intimate relationship with God. We must learn that there is no public power without first finding private devotion.
Andrew
Andrew is a picture of zeal. When he came into contact with Jesus, he was so excited that he immediately began to tell others. Sounds like many of us, as new Christians doesn’t it? But the interesting thing about Andrew is that he never lost his initial excitement. He was more than just a sprinter. He ran with endurance. Andrew tapped into the power of the Holy Spirit and, over the years of his life, impacted a generation with the Gospel of Christ.
Peter
Peter was a failure. At least he was for a while. The one thing we must learn from Peter is that failures are not final. If we will allow the Holy Spirit to change us, then we will mature and live through and past our mistakes. Even though we would like to think that as we grow up in our walk with Christ we will never falter or fail, most likely we will. But Peter proves to us that we can go on and still profoundly impact the world in spite of our weaknesses. Many of us are failures for now. But we must move on, grow up, and change our world.
The Apostle John
Quick tempered. Proud. Uncooperative. Maybe even hard to get along with. Sound like you? Actually, this is a description of John before. Before what? Before he allowed the Spirit of God to change him into a loving, humble, willing, and an easy to work with kind of guy. There is hope for us. That is what we should learn from John. There is hope for all of us who have some quirks to be used mightily by God.
Measuring the Changes in My Life
Richard Crisco, the youth pastor at Brownsville Assembly of God, says, “"When God measures a man He doesn't put the tape measure around his head, but around his heart." Although what we learn intellectually is vitally important, the real proof of growth can be found in our heart. Out of our heart flow our actions, attitudes, and speech: these things reveal change. There is an old saying that whatever is in the well will come up in the bucket. This is certainly true of us as Christians. Whatever is in our hearts will come out as we live our daily lives around others. How do you really know if you have made a change in your life? John foster Dulles gives us a pretty good measuring stick to go by when he said, “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.”
If we are allowing the Holy Spirit to change us, then there will certainly be growth. It will be noticeable and it will start in the heart. It will ultimately effect the way we talk, walk, think, react, and live. It is imperative to measure ourselves on a regular basis and to make sure that we are changing and growing. Without such a regular check, we will grow stagnate and get stuck in a rut. You do know what a rut is, don’t you? A rut is simply a grave with the ends knocked out. Don’t settle for being the same. Allow the Holy Spirit to produce change in your life.
In his book, Folk Psalms of Faith, Ray Stedman tells a story of a woman who had been a school teacher for 25 years. When she heard about a job that would mean a promotion, she applied for the position. However, someone who had been teaching for only one year was hired instead. She went to the principal and asked why. The principal responded, "I'm sorry, but you haven't had 25 years of experience as you claim; you've had only one year's experience 25 times." During that long period of time the teacher had not improved.
Without realizing it, the teacher had never grown. This was a tragedy but not nearly so devastating as it would be to discover that as a child of God, we have not changed, grown, or improved. We must allow the Holy Spirit to change us, for if there was no change, then there was no change.
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