Growing through Pains

BY John D. Jess

Galatians 5:17
HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED how prone we all are to take short-cuts? Whether in business or in your own work-a-day world, we're always looking for ways to get a job done in less time and with less effort and expense. I don't believe I've ever seen a vacant corner lot that didn't have a path across it!

I think far too many churchgoers are also searching for short-cuts to spiritual maturity in their lives. But those short-cuts never work, and so they become discouraged, give up the struggle and fall away.

The road to Jericho is strewn with the robbed, the stripped and the beaten, with half-dead Christians who've allowed themselves to fall into the hands of enemies that rob them of their heritage and strengths. And maybe it's because we thought there were short-cuts to spiritual maturity instead of steady and often painful growth. It could also be because we've underestimated the strength and the cunning of Satan.

Dead ends. Friends, there are no short-cuts to spiritual knowledge, power and maturity. Oh, I know there are those who tell us there are. If we can just speak in tongues and if we can just get the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they say, we'll become spiritual giants overnight. That's poppycock! Those, my friends, are not short-cuts to maturity!

In the spiritual realm, as in the biological world, there are no overnight leaps from babyhood to adulthood. That's not to say some don't grow faster than others, but the key word in the New Testament is "growth".

How do we grow? "Put on the whole armor of God." "Flee youthful lusts." "Seek those things which are above."

Christians, don't ever forget that the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit is a constant one. Paul writes in Galatians 5:17 that our sinful nature and the Spirit in us are "in conflict with each other". What is a conflict? It's a war!

Ultimate victory. As Christians, we all know what it is to lose a battlein fact, many battles. But we'll not lose the war! Don't give up because you lose a battle. What if the Allies had surrendered to the Axis in World War II the first time they lost a battle. But they didn't. They went on to win the war!

This is not to say we must be continually defeated in the Christian life. Not at all. The defeats become less and less the more we learn of the enemy's strategies.

When World War I broke out, the War Ministry in London sent this coded message to all the British outposts in some of Africa's remote spots: "War declared. Arrest all enemy aliens in your district." Back came the reply: "Have arrested ten Germans, six Belgians, four Frenchmen, three Austrians, two Italians. Please advise who we are at war with!"

Neighbor, if you are a Christian and there are any doubts in your mind as to who "we're at war with", you've sorely neglected your Bible! And I might add, your ignorance is indefensible. The enemy is Satan, and how is he defeated? James tells us in his letter (4:7): "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you!" o

J #jess ohn D. Jess is the regular speaker of Family Life Radio, P. O. Box 35300, Tucson, AZ 85740.

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