When someone comes to faith in Christ, something genuinely new begins. Scripture calls it being born again, a washing of regeneration and renewal worked in us by the Holy Spirit (). Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation (). Yet that new beginning is meant to lead somewhere. God does not bring us to new life so we can stay exactly as we were. He brings us to new life so we can grow.
Growth Is What God Asks of Us
Spiritual growth is not an extra reserved for especially devoted believers. It is woven into what it means to follow Jesus at all. When He sent His disciples into the world, He told them to make disciples and to teach those new believers to observe everything He had commanded (). Learning His will and putting it into practice, a little more each year, is simply the normal shape of a faithful life. None of us understands everything the moment we are baptized. We spend the rest of our days coming to know the Lord better and learning to live what we come to understand.
Peter returned to this idea again and again. He told young believers to long for pure spiritual milk so that by it they might grow up into salvation (). That is a striking way to speak, because it shows salvation is not only received at the beginning and then set aside. It is something we grow toward across a lifetime. The same apostle closed his second letter with a simple charge, to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (). Earlier in that letter he showed how it happens, as we add to our faith goodness, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, and love, and as those qualities keep increasing in us ().
None of this means we earn our standing with God. Salvation is His gift, received through faith and never deserved by our effort (). Growth is not a way of paying God back. It is the natural response of a heart that has been made new and wants to become everything its Maker intends.
We Do Not Grow on Our Own Strength
It would be a heavy burden if growth depended entirely on our own effort. Thankfully it does not. Paul was confident that the One who began a good work in his readers would carry it on to completion (). In the same letter he held together two truths we are tempted to pull apart. He told believers to work out their own salvation with reverence, and then added that it is God who works in them to will and to act for His good purpose (). We give real effort, and God is at work in that effort the whole time.
This is why Paul could say he was able to do all things through the One who gave him strength (). He prayed that his readers would be strengthened with power through God’s Spirit in their inner being, so they could grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ really is (). That strength is not a feeling that overwhelms us while we sit still. It comes as we take up what God has provided, the belt of truth, the shield of faith, and the word of God itself (). We grow by making use of what He has already placed in our hands.
Growth Brings Blessing Now and Later
Some people quietly assume that a serious walk with God is a dull way to live, and that real enjoyment is found by staying as close to the world as possible. Scripture tells a different story. Jesus said He came so His people might have life, and have it in abundance, more than anyone would normally expect (). The fullest and most meaningful life is not found at a distance from God. It is found in growing closer to Him.
Those blessings do not end with this life. John was told to write that the dead who die in the Lord are blessed, for they rest from their labors and their deeds follow them (). What we become and what we do now carries forward into eternity. That is why Paul urged believers to stand firm and give themselves fully to the work of the Lord, knowing that their labor is not in vain ().
A Choice Worth Making Again
Growth never happens by accident. We do not mature simply because time passes, any more than a person becomes wise merely by growing older. It is a choice we make and then keep making. Some believers have walked with God for years and have quietly stopped moving forward, and they sense it. If that describes any of us, the good news is that we can begin again today. God still asks us to grow, still provides the strength for it, and still blesses it. The invitation is to stop standing still and take the next step toward becoming the person He made us to be.