"The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. "
1 Timothy 1:5
WHERE ARE YOU GOING?
Read It: 2 Corinthians 3:18
Today and tomorrow I want to go back to our definition of discipleship ship (see Monday of last week) and discuss the third and fourth components ponents of the process. The third aspect of discipleship is that it is a progressive movement toward spiritual maturity. Your experience of following Jesus should be taking you somewhere. The goal of discipleship is your spiritual maturity, rity, which Paul describes in today's verse as being transformed into the image of God's glory. The question we have to ask is, what do spiritually mature disciples-or at least disciples who are moving toward maturity-look like? Well, some of them look like people who once did not know how to control their passions. sions. But they came under the teaching of God's Word, and now they understand how to maintain self-control with regard to their desires. Other growing and mature disciples look like people who at one time or another have struggled and lost against just about every sin you can imagine, but now in the strength of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit, they are living lives that are well-pleasing to God. Now please don't misread me. I'm not talking about sinless perfection. Anybody who tells you that you can go through life and never sin has just sinned because that's a lie. But what I am talking about is maturity, where the normal thing for you to do is bring every area of your life under the control of Jesus Christ.
So what is maturity? Very simply, it is coming to the place where you think, judge, and react biblically to every situation. When it is the rule and not the exception for you to apply the Bible to your life; when you place every area of your life under the lordship of Jesus Christ; when you can say in everything, "Here I am, Lord. What do You want me to do?"-then you are a mature disciple of Jesus Christ. The Bible calls it Christlikeness, because Jesus is intent on making you like Him. Who else is worthy for you to pattern your life after? Think About It Are you a growing disciple? Can you look back and see definite signs of progress? Keep at it!
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