Growth is a process and a progression. Just as the stages of life, we are conceived, born, grow to be toddlers, children, adolescents and finally become adults. We then grow older until we become old people and die. The process of life continues with our children and grandchildren. In the same way there is a process in our spiritual growth. We are converted or born again, we study the scriptures, pray, fellowship with the brethren and increase always in faith.

 

Abounding in Faith

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment,  so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 1:9 – 11 (NASB)

Today we will be looking at the progression of spiritual growth as presented in Philippians 1:9 – 11. Paul’s prayer to his audience is that they abound in love and that that love may abound in real knowledge and all discernment. All of this to the end that we may approve the things that are excellent. This in turn brings sincerity and blamelessness even unto the day of Christ Jesus. This love that is mentioned in today’s on-line bible study is more than just a Christian sentiment, but is rooted in knowledge and understanding.

This knowledge and understanding springs from personal bible study where the gospel is ‘heard’ and this produces faith. The word faith in the New Testament is Pistis which in its active form means to believe. Unlike our common understanding of faith over the years – faith is not just a matter of trust, but believing beyond present or former knowledge. It is a knowing where there is no present thing to substantiate that knowledge.

 

 

Selflessness

The place God wishes to take us is where we are more like Christ in our love for each other, even as is depicted by the gospel. It is that place where we think of others as being more worthy than ourselves. Rudy ‘the Bear’ challenges his hearers by using the analogy of parents’ love for their children. Parents are more knowledgeable than their children and do what is best for them, even if it means giving their lives for their health, their safety and their benefit.

In the same way, our Heavenly Father gave His Son for us His children. Jesus was willing to die so that all may have a choice of eternal life. The gospel redeems us and we are converted. As we move on from this conversion and we engage in bible study – we ‘hear’ God’s word which produces in us faith which is wrapped up in discernment and understanding.

Let us take a look at 1 Corinthians 13 which defines for us the excellence of love:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man