God's Plan and Promises for His PeopleSample

Why is spiritual growth necessary?

Once we are saved, we have escaped the punishment of hell and received the promise of life eternal. Salvation is the big thing, so why do we need to grow after being born again?

That's a legitimate question, one that frequently is left unanswered by many new Christians. Once we have come to new life in Christ, there are excellent reasons why we must grow spiritually. 

First, we must grow spiritually because we can do so. God created us in Christ Jesus as new creatures, capable of growth and spiritual development.

Do you remember the day you were saved? Likely you recognized that what you understood about salvation was far less than what you didn't understand. How could God love us so much? What role did the Spirit of God play in our salvation? How did this salvation thing work anyway? You reasonably had so many questions.  

That's good. That means there is ample room for growth in our Christian lives. We are not born again with all the answers provided for us. "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Pet. 3:18). That's not just good advice; that's God's Word!

Second, we must grow spiritually because we can't afford to be babies all our lives. God has a plan for our spiritual growth because He doesn't want us to remain spiritual infants forever.

When a newborn baby arrives in your house, he or she is cute and cuddly, a pleasure to have around. The joy of bringing home a newborn child overshadows any inconvenience your baby may cause—at least for the first week or the first month. But after a while, you wish your baby would learn to sleep all night long, digest his food better, cry a little less often—-even get up and get things for himself so you wouldn't have to wait on him hand and foot. Although we say we wish babies could remain little and cute forever, we don't mean it. We quickly become ready for them to move along in the growth process to become older children, teens, and adults.

As a parent, God is like that too. His plan is for us to move steadily away from our spiritual birthday into spiritual maturity. He doesn't want us to remain spiritual infants all our lives. God wants us to grow, to get some teeth so we can be weaned from the milk of the Word and sink our teeth into the meat of the Word (I Pet. 2:2; Heb. 5:14). God doesn't want us to remain spiritual babies.

Third, we must grow spiritually because growth tends toward maturity, while a lack of growth tends toward carnality.

Paul harshly rebuked the Corinthian believers because while they had trusted Christ sometime before, they hadn't grown much toward maturity. They were spiritual babes, carnal infants, and not men and women of maturity.

The apostle said, "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal" (I Cor. 3:1-3).

Once we are born again, we begin the long pilgrimage of the Christian journey. But new birth doesn't mean that we have arrived—only that we have started. Spiritual growth is the process of moving along the road to becoming increasingly like the Lord Jesus.