Dear BPCWA worshipper, If you’re like me, you must have exclaimed fairly frequently when looking at the children in our church “They are growing up so quickly!”. We recently had groups of people moving to the next fellowship or prayer groups as they reached a new stage in their lives. For example, those reaching Year 1 and entering school joined the children’s prayer group last week. Those moving to High School will move to the Teens’ prayer group and also begin to join the Teens’ DHW lessons as well. Students entering University have also moved into the University fellowships and graduands from the university have moved to the Regeneration group too. Besides these, we will be having our Sunday School graduation next month, marking yet another year of Sunday School studies. At that time, some students will also be promoted to the next level of Sunday School classes.  Again, I say, how quickly all these have grown. Such is physical organic growth.

A yearning for spiritual growth. Children love to be considered as “grown up” and may even take it for a compliment when others comment that they seem to have grown a lot taller very suddenly. Some children are so concerned about growing taller that they may sleep more or play certain games so as to grow. They may moan at the fact that they are not as tall as they wish. I wonder if any of them share the same interest in checking on their spiritual growth. Of greater concern is whether the physical growth has been at the expense of the spiritual growth. As parents, are we more concerned that the children need to get their sleep or their exercise for the best physical development over their spiritual growth? As a result, have the children become too tired physically and mentally for spiritual activities and hence are not growing spiritually? They may continue to be promoted to the next Sunday School class simply because they have reached that age or grade, but is the spiritual growth lagging behind the physical? As for adults, we all love to see our children grow up, and some even outgrow us physically as well. It is almost a measure of how well we have brought up our children – that we fed and provided for them well. But do we have the same yearning for their spiritual growth too? Or have we been too taken up by their physical that we have forgotten that there is a more important growth that Christian parents are tasked with developing? Parents must have an even greater yearning and concern for their children’s spiritual growth. Then of course there are those moving on to the adults’ group when they graduate from the university and enter the working world. To the students and adults, we know that there is a greater degree of independence as one grows up. While learning before was not “optional” due to regulated schedules and marked attendances, it did “force” you to become more conscientious and disciplined, and hence more independent as you grow up. The question though is with the greater independence as you grew up, have you become more conscientious and independent spiritually? By this, I do not mean to say that we should be independent of God. But are you less dependent on someone to “force” you to maintain your personal walk and church fellowship? Do you stagnate once you reach adulthood? We must all be careful of becoming unfruitful both while we are in a particular stage of life as well as when we grow into the next stage. If we do not grow in our care for spiritual things, then our walk with God will not grow because, “the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things entering in, choke the word, and it becometh unfruitful.” (Mr 4:19) Brethren, are you concerned about your spiritual growth? Is your spiritual man growing as your physical man continues to grow?

The greater importance of the spiritual. God tells us to be concerned about our spiritual growth. “Exercise thyself rather unto godliness.” (1Ti 4:7) is not a suggestion but a command. Moreover, we are also told that “bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” (1Ti 4:8). While children almost naturally grow and develop physically, that may not necessarily be the case with the spiritual. Children may grow taller because that is how the body is created. But even for the physical body, if we hardly eat, or when we do eat we eat unhealthy food, we will not grow properly. We may be stunted and we will most certainly be unhealthy and sickly. And in the spiritual realm, we must be even more conscious. This is because we do not see the effects of not growing especially when we are surrounded by spiritually stunted and weak souls. Greater effort to ensure spiritual growth is needed because “the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Gal 5:17). There is a resistance to spiritual growth, and that resistance comes first from within us as well as externally. If we don’t see the importance of spiritual growth, we will be diminishing in our spiritual frame instead of increasing. Not growing spiritually is certainly not God’s will. Unless we recognise that growth is important and regularly check our spiritual state, we will not grow. If we don’t consider spiritual growth to be critical, we will not even care about our spiritual condition. Some parents may have a tape measure against the wall to measure their children’s height while adults have blood tests regularly. We need to be far more regular and conscious of our spiritual state. At the start of the year and with our church theme this year, let us mark our calendars to check regularly on our spiritual condition. We often misunderstand and think that it is just about the mere accumulation and retention of theological knowledge. Spiritual growth is far more than that.

There is a significant difference that we need to be conscious of between the physical and spiritual realms regarding what happens as we age. In the physical realm, as people age, we expect growth to slow down, stop, and deteriorate at some point. But in the spiritual realm, this ought not to be so. We must not have the mentality and resign to not growing like in the physical realm. God wants not just the young to grow, but the adults and the elderly as well, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor 4:16). God also reminds us in Ephesians 4:13 that growth must happen “till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ”. This means that for the seniors reading this, growth includes you as well. To the young ones who are promoted in your classes, you must grow not just in knowledge but in your understanding and devotion to God. To the teens in the Basic Bible Knowledge Class, don’t let your growth stagnate. Are you a teenager, adult, or senior in stature but a babe spiritually? Let us all determine in 2024 that we will not just grow physically . . .

2Pe 3:18 But grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and for ever. Amen.

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor