[Devotional] IN HIS PRESENCE: Growing unto maturity

Read: 1 peter 1:5-11

Meditation verse:

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor 13:11).

You are not yet perfected. You are a work in progress. Your confession and acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Saviour is just the beginning of your walk with the Lord. You must grow unto maturity. There are things that pertain to life and godliness that God has made available to you, but you need to obtain and utilise them. You were saved by grace through faith, but faith without works is dead.

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Phil 2:12-13). Working out your salvation is very different from working for your salvation. The wonderful gift of salvation is inside of you, you need to live out the character traits and attributes of your salvation by faith. That is what it means to grow unto maturity. You need to work out your salvation and ‘the working’ is a continuous process.

So how do you grow unto maturity? “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby” (1 peter 2:2). You need to spend time in God’s presence praying and studying His word. “But also, for this very reason, 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. For he who lacks these things is short sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins” (2 Peter 1:5- 9). The more time you spend in God’s presence, the more your life exhibits the virtues of godliness, perseverance, and self-control.

Going through and enduring trying times also helps you grow unto maturity. “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

IN HIS PRESENCE is written by Pst (Mrs) Oke Chinye, Founder of The Rock Teaching Ministry (TRTM).

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