Grow in His Grace or you will be Disgraced

‘And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ (Luke 5:39)

‘People haven’t liked change for a couple thousand years. Willingness to embrace change is a key difference between great organizations (including churches) and those that are willing to settle for mediocrity and eventually become obsolete. You may think you’re doing people a favor by keeping things the same to keep people happy, but many times, what’s comfortable isn’t what’s healthy. Organizations need to change. Relationships need to change. People need to change. We hate change, but we need to change’ (Tony Morgan - Why We Need Change). This lesson is focused on two essential components of growth, which are change and productivity.

There cannot be life without growth and the average person desires to see growth in every endeavor. Even for Jesus the son of God to fulfill His purpose in life He had to grow, not only in stature but also in wisdom (Luke 2:52). However, as painful as change might be, there cannot be growth without change. Many interpretations have been given to Jesus’ parable in Luke 5:39 and one of them is that, people usually hold unto what they are used to. After they developed a taste for a particular type of ‘wine’, when they taste something different, they don’t like it initially. Because they think that the former, or familiar, ‘wine’ is better. However, if they continue to drink it, they may later realize that the newer ‘wine’ truly is better and they can be brought round to new ‘wine’, given time.

Another important aspect of growth is productivity. True growth can only be measured by development, or increase in productivity. Without increase in productivity or improvement, growth can be deceptive. In John 15 Jesus taught His disciples that He is the vine and they are the branches and any branch that is physically grown but remains unproductive will be destroyed. One of the challenges of the church today is discipleship. There are many ‘mega churches’ but the billion dollar question is, are the members of the mega churches real disciples whose lives are been transformed through God’s word, and are they been productive? Rick warren once said that, ‘you cannot build a healthy church fast. You can get a crowd fast, but a crowd is not a church. A crowd can be turned into a church if you have a process. The key to a healthy church is disciples not just a crowd. Rome was not built in a day and a healthy church is never built in a day’. His testimony was that in 4 years his church – Saddleback, had sent 8,000 of its members into 68 countries as missionaries. It takes discipleship to achieve that level of productivity in a church.

It is God’s will for every child of His to grow, develop and be productive in all life’s endeavors. The sad reality is that most people settle for the little achievements, without maximizing their God given potential. As a Christian, God wants you to grow in your knowledge of Him, in character and in productivity, as you yearn to know Him more every day. Be inspired the words of Paul, ‘I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 3:14). Grow in God’s grace or you will be disgraced. The next lesson of study is Knowing God’.