THE WAY TO SPIRITUAL MATURITY

“We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  (Romans 5:3b-5 NIV)

Imagine you are walking through a garden and you notice a butterfly struggling to emerge from its cocoon. What would happen if, in an effort to help it, you took some scissors and snipped the cocoon away?

In a few hours you would witness a tragedy. The wings, shrunken and shriveled, would not fill out with all their potential beauty. Instead of developing into a creature free to fly, the butterfly would drag a broken body through its short life. The constricting cocoon and the struggle necessary to be free from it are God’s way of forcing fluid into the butterfly’s wings. The “merciful” snip would have been in reality quite cruel.

The way to spiritual maturity is often difficult and ugly, forcing us to embrace our poverty before God and our dependence upon Him. We must learn to struggle well, not avoid the fight while building a shining exterior. Sometimes the struggle is exactly what we need.  

-- Adapted from an article entitled “Not According to Plan” by Jeff Jernigan in Discipleship Journal, No. 67

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THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT

Jesus never brainwashed anyone.  To the contrary, He depicted the cost of following Him in the most realistic terms imaginable, "Take up your cross and follow Me." (Matthew 16:24)  He never imposed Himself on another person but always left room for choice and even rejection.  In that same style, any changes God works in a person will come about not as a result of coercion from the outside but by a Spirit working from within, summoning up new life, transforming from the inside, out.  The words used to describe God's Spirit -- Comforter, Helper, Counselor -- imply that change may involve a slow, internal process, with many fits and starts.

After considering the various words used of the Holy Spirit, both in Greek and in English, James Houston summarizes them in the simple word "friend."  A true friend always has my best interest at heart. Sometimes the Spirit must, like a good friend, use tough love to remind me of what needs to change -- knowing me from the inside out.  God can bring to mind shortcomings I would prefer to overlook. Yet when I feel empty, misunderstood, and lonely, the Spirit offers comfort, calming my anxiety and fear. Most of all, the Spirit reminds me of God's love, His very presence a token of the fact that I have been graciously adopted as God's child.

-- Philip Yancey in “Reaching for the Invisible God” 

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