Everything in life has stages! There are periods, phases, steps, points to which we grow (or die)! You see I believe we are either growing or dying, but that really is another post for another day. Right now we are on this…stages of life!
Now, I can’t prove this, but just like their are “stages” of life I believe we go through stages in our Christian growth! For me, I know this has been especially true! Matter of fact I could give you a list of these stages and what they look like:
- Becoming a Christ Follower
- Accepting God’s Grace
- Trusting God’s Sovereignty
- Making His Name Famous
I don’t know if it’s like this for all people (I would bet that it is very similar), but when I became a Christian the hardest thing for me to still get my heart and mind around was God’s grace. I knew I was forgiven but the idea that God still loved me no matter what…WOW!!
Then it was learning what it meant to truely trust God in all of His Sovereignty through all situations, and although I am still learning more about each of these every day I have learned that my ultimate calling in life is to “Make His Name Famous!”
Now through all of this I have learned a lot! However, the one thing that sticks out to me is how many people begin to confuse the words GRACE & GROWTH. We slip into this way of thinking when we begin to understand GRACE more and it prohibits us from GROWTH in our relationship with Christ. Let me explain…
God’s GRACE is NOT about GLORIFYING ME!
The cliff notes version of GRACE is basically that God loves us no matter what! Which He does…more than we know! I still haven’t been able to get my head or mind fully around this idea (nor do I ever think I will because it’s so HUGE). God…the HOLY, AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL, POWERFUL and LOVING GOD has more grace and mercy in Him than we can even begin to fathom! How amazing is that?
However, the common misconception we allow ourselves to slip into with our thought process when it comes to this idea of GRACE is that GRACE is about us! Which it isn’t! The purpose of GOD’s GRACE is to ultimately GLORIFY GOD…not us! However, if we aren’t careful we begin to gradually think that God’s grace is something that points to us, rather than points to God!
This can become a HUGE problem when we are actually wanting to GROW in our relationship with Christ…
My GROWTH (as a Christ Follower) is about GLORIFYING God
The problem with seeing God’s Grace as something that is about US rather than something that is ALL about GOD is that it limits our view of God! Just like God’s Grace is something that is meant to bring Him Glory…the same goes for our GROWTH! If we want to really grow as a Christ followers we have to understand this simple point: It’s not about ME!
I believe we grow most as a Christ Follower when we help, serve, care for and love on other people! However, this requires us to actually believe that “It’s not about me.” We grow as believers when we begin to realize that our main calling in life is to “Make His Name Famous”…not our own!
The bottom line is this: God’s Grace and our Growth are meant to GLORIFY GOD and not ourselves! This may seem like a cut and dry point, but just stop for a second and think how many times we:
- Told someone you couldn’t volunteer
- Refused to help someone in need
- Don’t spend your daily quiet time with God.
What happens when we begin to adopt this incorrect way of thinking is we make decisions based on what we think or what we feel rather than what God wants us to do! It all starts when we being to think that “God’s Grace” is about us and not about Him…it limits our growth later because our view of God is already tainted.
In other words, when we begin to really get to the point of accepting God’s Grace (no longer feeling guilt for past sins or current ones that we repent of) we want to make sure our view of His grace isn’t limited to “God loves ME.” Because if we do, as we grow in our relationship with Christ we will begin to ask many questions that revolve around this thought “God, what can you do for ME?” (even if its something we do subconsciously).
I believe our view of “God’s Grace” should be the same as our view of our Growth…”Its all about you, God!” We are here to fulfill a purpose…to make His name Famous! We are here to serve Christ, not Christ serve us! We can’t do that by a “ME” view of grace or growth. And let’s face it, growth can be a hard thing because God will stretch us, mold us, and enable us to be all we can FOR HIS GLORY, not ours!
But enough about what I think…what do you guys think?