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THE NORTHERN KENTUCKY SEARCHER VOLUME 2, NUMBER 48, DECEMBER 29, 2002 GROWTH
“Go ahead and eat all of your vegetables and you will grow up big and
strong like your daddy.” Did you
ever say that, or something like it, to one of your kids?
I suspect that most of us did and when they were little, it usually
worked. Little children want to grow
up “big and strong”. It wasn’t
until my kids got a bit bigger that they would say, “Hey, wait a minute!
Daddy doesn’t eat his vegetables!”
Anyway, growth is natural and essential.
Indeed, when something stops growing, it is not too long before in begins
to deteriorate.
The bible speaks of “growth”
in many different ways. It does so
in the physical sense as in the case of Isaac in Genesis 21:5 – 8.
The passage says, “And Abraham was an hundred years old, when his
son Isaac was born unto him. And
Sarah said, God hat made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me.
And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have
given children suck? For I have born
him a son in his old age. And the
child grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great feast the same day
that Isaac was weaned.”
The bible refers to “growth” in the numerical sense as well.
In Acts 7:17, we find, “But when the time of the promise drew nigh,
which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in
We also find the bible using “growth” in the sense of spiritual
growth. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:2, “As
newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”
As I look at some of the ways in which “growth” is spoken of in
God’s Word, I am impressed with the individual nature of “growing”.
No one can grow physically for a child.
The child must do the growing itself.
We certainly provide the child with the things necessary for growth: a
safe environment, food and drink, opportunity for exercise, health care when
called for, and so on, but the actual physical growth is accomplished by the
child itself.
Spiritual growth is an individual thing as well.
I can’t grow spiritually for you and you can’t grow spiritually for
me. I must study, pray, worship, and
work for the Lord myself if I am to “grow in grace and in knowledge of the
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter
When the bible speaks of “growth” numerically, that is an individual
thing too. Every group of people
that grows, grows one person at a time, whether we are talking about a nation or
the church. We all want the church
here at
Remember the words of the Hebrew writer in Hebrews 5:12 – 14, “For
when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again
which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have
need of milk, and not of strong meat. For
every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is
a babe. But strong meat belongeth to
them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses
exercised to discern both good and evil.” The more spiritually mature we are individually, the more the church will grow numerically – not by folks moving into the area, but by converts from the community. That’s the way that God designed it.
ABOUT ATTENDANCE
No matter how you measure it, attendance is a sign of interest.
In the Rotary Club, if you have three unexcused absences, you can be
dropped from your classification and dismissed from the club.
Why? Because Rotary
International sees a lack of attendance as a sign of diminished interest.
It is no less true of the people of God.
We will be held accountable for not properly supporting the functions of
the local church (Hebrews --Via The Southside Reminder I heard about an
older sister who was so hooked on those day-time soap operas that when one of
the characters got sick, she’d request prayers for them!!
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