Growing Taller in the Lord

[I told you my blog would be late! Sorry!]

Kids are excited by their physical growth. It's common for kids to mark their heights on a door frame of the house and watch the marks get higher and higher as they grow up. They often stand back to back to see who's taller and they regularly describe their height by how high they come up to their parents ... "I come up to my mom's shoulders!" As adult believers, we may be finished with our physical growth but we will forever be maturing in our spiritual lives. And checking progress is still an exciting experience. Here are three ways to check and evaluate your spiritual growth.

We can know that our relationship with the Lord is growing when we can clearly see our new nature exhibiting itself routinely in our lives. As we give the Spirit more and more of our lives, we will become increasingly aware of our own sinfulness and weaknesses. We will have realized that we cannot live this Christian life in our own strength and we will lean ever heavier on our Lord for His strength. We will find it impossible to live without Him. He is our life and our reason to exist.

We can know we are growing when our response to temptation and sin is a quick negative ... the prick of conviction brings about immediate and genuine repentance. Ignoring our sin is rebellion against God, and disobedience stops our spiritual growth.

We can know when we are growing spiritually and our intimacy with God is deepening when we vigorously guard our quiet time with our Lord and Savior every day. Private moments spent in prayer and Scripture meditation will have become a top priority for us as we continue to grow and mature. By listening to the Lord and talking with Him about our joys and needs, we will stay connected to His will and are reminded of His love.

Seeing our spiritual growth within ourselves should give us much joy! Why? Because our spirits are looking more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior! And we don't need to stand back to back with people of the world for them to see that we are "blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which [we] shine like stars in the universe" (Phil 2:15 NIV).

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I'm really sorry this is so late in the day. I mean it's after 6:00 in Georgia where some of you live. But I didn't do my blog before my doctor appointment and then I had to pick up some prescriptions at the pharmacy. I swung by the house and picked up Michael and he went to the pharmacy with me and together we finished our Christmas shopping. We only had one left to buy for but he's really, really hard to buy for. Ended up just getting him a new mug. Nothing else was appropriate for him. I went by the bank and exchanged some bills I had for nice, crisp, new bills, one for each grandchild. And lastly, I dropped back by the store and bought what I need for dinner with Leo on Saturday night. Leo called while I was at the doctor's office and Michael got the impression that Leo thought we were having dinner tomorrow night and so I had to make sure that he understood that it was for Saturday. He said he was just calling to remind me so I wouldn't forget that he's coming for dinner Saturday. He's so excited about it. I hope he has fun. Leo asked what we were having to eat and I told him spaghetti and salad and garlic bread. He liked that. Then he says, "And bacon bits? I like bacon bits in my salad." I told him I planned on making him some fresh bacon bits for his salad. "What will we have to drink?" he asked. I told him iced tea and said he liked ice tea. Then He says, "And dessert? What will we have for dessert?" I told him I planned on baking a pumpkin pie and he says, " That's good. That's good." That satisfied him for today. Michael happened to think that maybe I should give Leo a Christmas present and as luck would have it, I had a box of candy left over after all my wrapping and so I pasted on a bow and put his name on it. I just want it to be a really fun night for him. I'm sure he doesn't get asked to come over for dinner too often. Maybe never. I'm so afraid I won't have anything to talk about so I've started making a list of questions I can ask him. He's such a sweetheart. Keep us in your prayers that he has a really good time. He wanted to make sure that he could stay after dinner a bit and visit.

Well, I'm going to go ahead and publish this post since it's already so late in the day I won't spend any more time rambling on about my life. I have a deacons' meeting tonight but will be home early so tomorrow's blog should be published in the morning, California time. Until tomorrow ...