The Holy Pursuit

Recently I finished reading a short book titled Enjoying Intimacy with God by J. Oswald Sanders.  There was one passage in particular which impacted me concerning our need to keep growing and embrace our sanctification.  By extension it also relates to my need to develop and grow as a member of the body of Christ and the role God has given me.  Sanders wrote:

The important thing is that we must "press on to maturity" (Hebrews 6:1).  Keep on growing.  Too many Christians become stuck in their Christian lives--"stuck between Easter and Pentecost," as Dr. Graham Scroggie put it.

I once knew a godly Christian woman who was dying of cancer.  She knew she had only a few days to live.  Her husband was attending to her needs, trying to make things as easy as possible for her.  She said to him, "You must not make things too easy for me.  I must keep growing, you know."  Her life of intimacy with God had brought her to a state of spiritual maturity in which she was more concerned about growing up into Christ than about her own very real pain and discomfort.  We too need to be ambitious to increase in our knowledge of God.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews urged his readers to cultivate such an ambitions, in these words:  "Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press on to maturity (6:1).  Dr. Alexander Smellie pointed out that the King James Version renders it, "Let us go on."  The Revised Version puts it, "Let us press on."  Bishop Westcott prefers to phrase it, "Let us be bourne on."

"The truth is that it needs all three to disclose the verb's significance and wealth.  Put them together, and they speak to us of three dangers which beset us as we look to the perfection front.  There is the danger of stopping too soon.  There is the danger of sinking into discouragement.  And there is the danger of supposing that we are alone."  How gracious God is to make provision through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, for our being "bourne on to maturity." (Sanders, J. Oswald. Enjoying Intimacy with God. Discovery House Publishers, 2000.pages 114-115)

The potential dangers mentioned by Sanders are real for all who follow Christ.  It is easy to stop too soon, to sink into discouragement or imagine we are alone.  We are called to press on to maturity and in ministry, looking to God for guidance and strength.  Apart from Him we can do nothing, but the Holy Spirit empowers us to do all things according to His will.  The weakness of our flesh is no hindrance to God's work, for it was in that place Paul discovered God's strength made perfect.  The directive given by Joshua to the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh in Joshua 22:5 is fitting for believers to heed as well:  "...to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast to Him, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul."  The Christian walk is to be marked by the pursuit of Jesus and cleaving to Him, for He is our Life.