“Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)

When we were children we wanted to grow and we expected to grow. We thought little about how we grew because it happened so naturally and, to us, imperceptibly. Life appeared to be one long adventure, promising ever new discoveries and excitement.

As a child of God, do you feel the same? Is your spiritual growth as assured, as full of promise and excitement? Strange to say, many believers do not share the child’s wide-eyed wonder at all that lies before them. Instead there is often a sort of dread, or fatalism – a resignation to perpetual babyhood – and the growth that should be natural is stunted, shrivelled – or in a word, simply missing. Not a pretty picture!

Why is it so? Where have we gone wrong? There are, no doubt, many answers that might be given, but here I want to focus on just one.

A child must be nourished and a child must also be active, engaging appropriately with their family, their friends and their world. There is no special school required or special curriculum, all this is found right where they are – at home and in the care of their family.

The nature of our spiritual growth is essentially growth in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ – a real knowledge that is not merely mental but is of the sort that changes our heart, our outlook and our actions. It is not about learning to conform to a religious pattern of behaviour, nor about becoming active in Christian work – the work will follow – but spiritual growth is necessarily an inward thing because it pertains to our spirit and the Holy Spirit who lives in us. Our behaviour and our work must flow out of, and be consistent with, our inner life.

So what has the wisdom of God determined to be the means of our growth? It is modelled for us in our own children. Right where we are, in our homes, in our daily life, in our fellowship with His children, God has provided all that we need for our growth in the riches of His grace through the knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

How does it work? Simple. Just as child eagerly explores and engages with their ever expanding world, so we must eagerly explore and engage spiritually with our world. That means that as we experience our heart’s response to situations, to people and as we make choices day by day, we look at all these experiences as redeemed children of God and in the light of the Scripture, the essential “light to our path”. You might call this having an active faith, or to use Paul’s phrase, we “sow to the Spirit” (Galatians 6:8).

There is nothing remarkable about this. It really is a most ordinary thing. You have been redeemed from sin by the blood of Christ. You have tasted His love in some measure. You have been born from above and you seek to discover and to live this wonderful new life. As you do, your ordinary life experiences try your heart. Sins, selfish motives, hidden idols, all sorts of things begin to be uncovered. It is from these that the Holy Spirit is slowly delivering you in order that your fellowship with the Lord Jesus may grow. The heart can be tried by very small things, but the issues being dealt with huge.

In this very simple and accessible way, we are taught what salvation is and in whom it is found. We grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So back to the question: where have we gone wrong? We have not seen that spiritual growth is primarily a matter of the heart, not the head, and we have looked for growth everywhere except where it is always to be found – right where we are.

“Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:5-8)