My! How You’ve Grown!
October 27, 2012
You may not be aware of it, but out in cyberspace, October was designated as an “Ultimate Blog Challenge” month. The idea is simple and genius for bloggers: pick a topic and blog about it everyday for a month. The challenge is designed to increase productivity and traffic to your blog. The desired end result? Develop a new daily habit of blogging (writing), read other people’s blogs, be inspired and maybe even make a few friends along the way.
You may have noticed that we didn’t participate in that challenge. 🙂
Actually I didn’t even know about it until my friend in Mississippi accepted the challenge and invited me to view her blog. You can visit her here: http://changedmyplans.blogspot.com/
However, one day towards the end of September, as I was rummaging through a stack of papers, I found a calendar that lists a different biblical virtue for every day of the month. So I decided to work through that list and journal about each virtue during October. Journaling is simply old fashioned blogging only typically no one sees it which is a good thing since my journaling grammar is atrocious and my punctuation is practically non-existent.
But today I need to post a real blog out “there” so I will open my journal and let you peek inside. The virtue for the day is “Grow in Grace” and the Scripture is
2 Peter 3:18
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
The verse starts with “but” – as in “But grow in grace…” That means I gotta back up a little.
“You therefore, beloved,… be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your steadfastness.” (2 Peter 3:17)
People were distorting the message – nothing new under the sun – and Peter’s final words were a warning not to get carried away by unprincipled teaching but “grow in grace”. The word “grow” used here means to augment and become greater. It’s the same word used of Jesus in Luke 2:52.
Interesting it says grow IN grace and not grow in the knowledge of grace. We are to grow in the knowledge of the Lord and grow IN grace. I think this means in our understanding of His grace toward us and then our grace toward others will be a REFLECTION of His grace. It’s far easier (for me) to grow in knowledge. But we need emotional knowledge to go along with our stacks of facts.
To grow IN something means I am experiencing the benefits of it myself. I can’t invite anyone else into my grace but I can invite them IN to experience the Lord’s grace. To repeat an example I often use in my teaching, if I get inside a cool room, I have the full benefits of the air conditioning in that room. I can’t extend those benefits to anyone unless they come inside with me but the cool air they feel is not my doing. It is coming from the air conditioning system or to extend the analogy – it’s from the Lord.
Same thing with grace – I can only invite someone to experience His grace, not mine. But hopefully I’ve reflected “growing IN grace” so that they accept that invitation. (ct)
Note: You can find the Biblical virtues list at Revive Our Hearts.
http://www.reviveourhearts.com/articles/31-biblical-virtues-to-pray-for-your-children/
Although this list of virtues is for children, I have been praying through them for myself!