- May 4, 2007
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We all go through stages of development as Jesus matures us.
I use 2 Peter 1:5-7 as the stages:
1. faith -- we all start by appropriating God's grace through faith through prayer for all things. Ask! Seek! Knock!
2. goodness -- God blesses our prayers as we DO good to others. He seduces us into kindness.
3. guidance -- divine guidance shows us what God considers to be the good thing to do. Our enthusiasm is no gauge of God's will.
4. transformation enables us to do that which God tells us to do. We need to put the old nature to death so we can live to the new nature.
5. hope -- we need to start investing in heaven as a form of deferred gratification.
6. godliness -- we begin to feel about things as God does, as we invest in what God likes (which will give us the best return).
7. koinonia -- God will reward us as we bless His adopted children. We grow in love in this loving environment, day by day.
8. agape -- as an overflow from the love in the koinonia, we begin to love the lost, the unlovely, the spiteful, the evil. This is the final stage of Christian maturity.
Now Faith, Hope and Love abide -- but the greatest of these is Love (agape). We begin with faith and selfishness. That's okay; all babies are inherently selfish and their parents love them anyway. But the babies need to gradually grow up through grace and wisdom.
This is why we get different things from the Bible each time we read it. The Bible hasn't changed; we have changed. Oftentimes the Lord will give us a "theme of the week" and emphasize a certain teaching for the whole week. God is good. He loves us with an unfathomable love. It will be SO good to be with him in heaven!
--The Order of Saint Patrick
I use 2 Peter 1:5-7 as the stages:
1. faith -- we all start by appropriating God's grace through faith through prayer for all things. Ask! Seek! Knock!
2. goodness -- God blesses our prayers as we DO good to others. He seduces us into kindness.
3. guidance -- divine guidance shows us what God considers to be the good thing to do. Our enthusiasm is no gauge of God's will.
4. transformation enables us to do that which God tells us to do. We need to put the old nature to death so we can live to the new nature.
5. hope -- we need to start investing in heaven as a form of deferred gratification.
6. godliness -- we begin to feel about things as God does, as we invest in what God likes (which will give us the best return).
7. koinonia -- God will reward us as we bless His adopted children. We grow in love in this loving environment, day by day.
8. agape -- as an overflow from the love in the koinonia, we begin to love the lost, the unlovely, the spiteful, the evil. This is the final stage of Christian maturity.
Now Faith, Hope and Love abide -- but the greatest of these is Love (agape). We begin with faith and selfishness. That's okay; all babies are inherently selfish and their parents love them anyway. But the babies need to gradually grow up through grace and wisdom.
This is why we get different things from the Bible each time we read it. The Bible hasn't changed; we have changed. Oftentimes the Lord will give us a "theme of the week" and emphasize a certain teaching for the whole week. God is good. He loves us with an unfathomable love. It will be SO good to be with him in heaven!
--The Order of Saint Patrick
