SIXTEEN: Spiritual Growth

When I was a kid, I drank a ton of white milk. I was not a fan of milk. I didn't like the way it tasted. It didn't put me to sleep at night. It was gross. I drank milk, not because my mom made me, but because of this commercial (and others like it):


The ad doesn't say that drinking milk will make you grow taller. But when I was 6 years old and I watched this sort of commercial every Saturday morning during cartoons I became convinced of one thing:

Drinking milk would make me grow tall (though it never actually said that). 

Tall in our family, is like a pipe dream. It's like a star that is just out of reach, even if you jump. But at 6 years old, I didn't know that there was no hope. I didn't know that the product of a 5'9" father and a 4'11" mother could only end in shortness. To me, milk was magic. It was like a potion! It would make me grow.

In most cases, when you think you have to room to grow, and you know that you can grow...you'll go for it. Growth is good. We like to grow. We like for our relationships to grow in love. We like career growth and development. We like to say we've "grown" intellectually and emotionally in the years since graduating from college. Growth is expected.

Yet, spiritual growth sometimes gets shrugged away. We are often waiting for a "poof" of God's grace and love to somehow make us spiritual giants. Even at 6 years old, I didn't think the growth would happen on its own. I knew I would grow, just because that's what bodies do, but by adding the milk I was intentionally inviting exponential growth into my life. By drinking milk I was taking the necessary steps to be tall.

Today's reading on (you guessed it) growth is taken from the second epistle of the Apostle Peter:

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins. Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. 

- 2 Peter 1:5-11

This reading starts with verse 5, but there is critical information in earlier verses. Not to hate on Bible Gateway, but how do you start a reading with "Now for this very reason..." The reason is rather important, don't you think?

Here's the thing though, those reasons actually make this a much more difficult passage:

...seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. 

- 2 Peter 1:3-4

Basically, taken in conjunction, this scripture says since you have the power to do so  and the promise of success to grow...then...GROW!

This is the real milk. You have the power to drink it. You have the promise that it will make you grow tall. So, drink the milk. It seems simple.

Faith is baseline. And it is most important. But love is the finish line, and it's built on all these other growth factors: moral excellence, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, and brotherly kindness. All of these things are the intentional moves we make towards exponential growth. Everyone can grow, but will step out on faith and attempt it. It won't always be easy. It won't always feel good. But growth is guaranteed (power and promises)!

Got milk?

...then drink it.