A group of tourists visiting a picturesque village walked by an old man sitting beside a fence. In a rather patronizing way, one tourist asked him, “Were any great men born in this village?” The old man replied, “Nope, only babies.” His point was that no one is born as a hero or heroine, or someone who joins the annals of renowned history. Everyone starts out at ground level as a crying infant.

And that’s how you start out as a born-again believer as well. You aren’t born as a Christian adult, but as a babe in Christ (1 Cor. 3:1). You take baby steps on the narrow road that leads to life, and you eventually start to run the race of redemption (Heb. 12:1). You drink the milk of God’s word until you can mature and feast on the meat of truth (1 Peter 2:2; Heb. 5:12).

And while we start out this way, we must not stay this way. It is God’s will that we grow in Christ as believers. We must “no longer be children,” commanded Paul in Ephesians 4, “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine” (4:15a). We must “grow up” into salvation and give up “childish ways” (1 Peter 2:2; 1 Cor. 13:11). And we must “graduate” from the elementary school of faith, moving on from the ABCs of the Christian life to the deeper things of God (Heb. 6:1-3).

Therefore, the Lord commands all believers: “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen” (2 Peter 3:18). We are exhorted to always seek a deeper understanding of Christ and to experience His grace more fully. We should never settle with what we already know and who we are right now. Rather, we should strive for continual growth and constant progress in spiritual maturity.

And the measure of our growth in grace is fruitfulness. Growing crops produce fruit and growing Christians produce spiritual fruit. Thus, all believers should be a good tree that “bringeth forth good fruit” (cf. Matt. 7:16-18). When you abide in the True Vine, you will bear “spiritual produce” that points people to its source, which is the Lord Jesus (John 15:1-8). If you possess the Holy Spirit and let Him possess you, you will bear fruits of “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] temperance” (Gal. 5:22-23, KJV).

Therefore, our daily prayer should sound like the words of Growing in Grace, a hymn penned by Edmund S. Lorenz (1854-1942) which pleads, 

“Help me Saviour, more each day,

Gladly Thy sweet will obey;

More and more Thy love display,

Oh, help me grow in grace!

Growing in grace ev’ry day,

Growing in grace ev’ry hour,

Help me Saviour, Thou hast pow’r,

To ever grow in grace.”