Session 10

Doing this will stunt your spiritual growth

From Chasing Purpose: A 27-Day Devotional

“Eat your vegetables and you’ll grow up big and tall.”

“Don’t drink coffee or you’ll stunt your growth.”

Remember those sayings from when you were growing up?

The reality is that no amount of fasting from coffee and loading up on vegetables can overcome genetics. Some of us were destined to be able to reach the top shelf. Others of us will always need a stool.

We don’t get a lot of control over our height, but we do play a part in our spiritual growth. The Bible shows us one sure way to stunt our spiritual growth: refuse to let God rebuke you. If God convicts us of wrongdoing and we deny or defend our sin, we basically stop growing. We reject His lordship over our lives, and we hit a plateau, spiritually.

Paul tells Timothy that God’s Word teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains us in righteousness so we will be adequately equipped as Christians (2 Timothy 3:16). God speaks and corrects us through the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and the church. True Christian friends will correct us gently and challenge us to become the people God calls us to be. We must embrace tough love if we want to reach the heights God has for us.

Seeing our faults is always necessary but never fun. The fun begins when we take that awareness to God and ask Him to align our hearts with His. If we’ll trust that God’s way is better than ours, we’ll find that following His instruction frees us from sin and propels us into the full life we long for.

Proverbs 1:29-33 describes what happens when we reject God’s correction: “Since they hated knowledge and did not choose to fear the Lord, since they would not accept my advice and spurned my rebuke, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be filled with the fruit of their schemes.”

We grow as Christians by changing into people who go through life God’s way, not our own way. We do this by receiving the truth we do not want to hear and letting God instruct, correct, and bless us.

Reflect:

• What’s one way to know if you’re letting the Bible shape you or if your views are shaping how you read the Bible?
  
• What’s one area of your life where you’ve had to change your mind to align with God?
  
• How has allowing the Bible to shape your views helped you find your purpose or calling?