Growth

The Christian value of growth is important for the spiritual life and in one’s relationship with God. It is a continual growth.

A person starts his or her relationship with God through repentance and in wishing to live the way God wants. This relationship grows from fearing God to loving God. This growth continues into a life of holiness because God said, “you shall be holy for I am holy.” (Levitcus 11 :44). Furthermore the Bible says that without holiness no one will see God (Hebrews 12:14). As mentioned the Christian value of growth is a continual growth. This is because Jesus said “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48). So it can be seen that the road to perfection has no end because this perfection is infinite as God is infinite.

The Apostle Paul sets an example for us. He is a great saint who was “caught up to the third heaven” and performed miracles. He also was a chosen by God to tell the world about Jesus and labored more than all the other Apostles. Yet in spite of all this he says in the Bible regarding the spiritual heights that he reached “Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind (Philippians 3: 12-15). We see then that even the righteous must always have this mind, to strive, “to reach forward.”

What is this “ahead” that Paul was trying to reach? He writes to the Ephesians that they “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:18,19)
What an amazing phrase, ” to be filled with all the fullness of God… ” – God who is infinite and perfect.

Christians look to the Lord Jesus Christ Himself – to be more like Him – and they aim for perfection by doing so. Therefore Christians try to continually grow and are careful of not going backwards

Below is a writing by Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church in which he describes this growth poetically and encourages Christians to continuously”reach forward” as St Paul has taught.