Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognize the difference between right and wrong. Hebrews 5:14 NLT
The Bible speaks of those who are spiritually mature by virtue of having been trained. As with any training, there have to be various stages and processes the person being trained goes through in order to arrive at expertise. As we look at spiritual development, let’s draw an analogy of a person waking up and starting their day.
Typically, the first thing people do when they wake up from a night’s sleep is to open their eyes, so this is usually the first sign of being awake. The next step would then be to get up. When you get up you may still be a little groggy and may stagger a bit when you take your first few steps and then get their bearings right as we often see with young children. Adults typically would stretch a little bit to loosen tension in the muscles after being in the same position for a while. Then you start moving and fully kick off your day, going on to achieve great things. Then the day ends and the process starts again the next day.
Spiritual development is similar to this and the process may be summarised in 4 key stages which we have labelled: Awake, Arise, Align and Advance.
This series we are digging into these stages and we trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us as we commit to the process of continuous spiritual growth. Click Here to download the study.