How are You Doing?

How are You Doing as a follower of Jesus? Are you growing in your faith? Are you closer to Jesus today than you were last year at this time? More obedient? Serving more? More surrendered?

It’s good for us to evaluate our lives from time to time. We evaluate other areas of life to see if they’re healthy: our finances, our health, our grades (if you’re a student), our job. But we rarely evaluate our spiritual lives.

The reason may be that we don’t know how to evaluate our spiritual maturity. How can we evaluate where we are spiritually?

I read an article that tried to do exactly that using a familiar passage of scripture – Philippians 2:3-8. I suggest that you read it now before going any further.

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How can we evaluate

where we are spiritually?

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Now that you’ve read or re-read the passage from Philippians, let’s look at how Jesus responded in this situation. Obviously on a spiritual scale of 1 – 100, Jesus ranks at 100. So using Him as our guideline we can get some idea of where we fit on the scale.

Here are four things the Apostle points out about Jesus.

Jesus was:

1) Others Focused. Verses 3-4.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.

Spiritual maturity can be gauged by how little you elevate yourself and how much you elevate other people. Jesus was not thinking about His own comfort when He came. He was thinking about you.

2) Self Denying. Verse 6-7A.

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing.

Even though Jesus was God, He didn’t use that as a reason to remain in heaven. Instead, in a remarkable expression of self-denial He went from the highest level of exaltation to the lowest. That is spiritual maturity.

3) A Servant. Verse 7B

Taking the very nature of a servant.

Spiritual maturity is all about being a servant. Serving God and serving others.

4) Willing to Submit. Verse 8.

And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to death.

Few, if any of us will be asked to die for our faith. That’s not the point. The point is, are you willing to submit to lesser things? Are you willing to do whatever God asks you to do? A Christian who is growing in their faith will submit to God and the Word of God.

So, using Jesus as your guide, How are you doing? How are You Doing as a follower of Jesus?

How would you rate your spiritual maturity on a scale of 1-100?

But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 3:18.

Stay in the Word

Pastor Steve

Transitions

Transitions are a fact of life. We are constantly transitioning from one part of life to another, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in ways that shake our world. It may be a birthday, a new job, changing schools, a marriage, moving to a new area, making new friends or a hundred other things that can change our lives.

Some people take changes in stride, others not so much.

But think about life without any transitions. You’d be stuck in a time-warp like the movie Groundhog Day!

Transitions can be a good thing if they are handled in the right way. They can also be detrimental to our lives if we don’t handle them correctly. All of the transitions in your life and how you have handled them have made you who you are today. 

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The entire Christian life is a

monumental transition from

this life to eternal life

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In the Christian life, transitions are not only good, but they are necessary. We need to be constantly growing and moving from one area of our spiritual lives to the next area. Without transitions our spiritual lives would stagnate which will lead to spiritual apathy.

Think about the transitions that happened in the life of some of the great saints. Noah: building the ark was a time of transition. Abraham: traveling from Ur to Canaan was a great transition. Moses from Egypt to the desert back to Egypt, back to the desert were all periods of transition. The Apostle Paul went through perhaps one of the epic transitions of all time when he went from persecutor of the church to missionary of the church. These were epic in comparison to what most of us have experienced.

The entire Christian life is a monumental transition from this life to eternal life.

But before that takes place there are many smaller transitions that should take place in our lives. We are to grow in spiritual maturity (Ephesians 4:14-15), in faith (2 Thessalonians 1:3), in grace (2 Peter 3:18) and in biblical knowledge (2 Peter 3:18).

That means there needs to be a transition from what you were to what you are to become. And that transition is to occur over and over again – it’s not a one-time thing but a constant remaking of who you are as you grow into the image of Christ.

It’s a fact that without transitioning from one aspect of your spiritual life to another you will never be who God saved you to be.

Don’t be afraid of transitions. Embrace them. Use times of transition to become a better version of yourself. Cooperate with God as He moves you from who you are to who He wants you to be.

Stay in the Word

Pastor Steve