Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV, Matthew 5:38-43 NKJV
What is Growth?
- Growth is the act or process, of increasing gradually in Size (Amount), Stage (Maturity), or Substance (Value).
- Growth is development from a simpler to a more complex stage
You have to go through process if you are going to go through progress.
The people who push or who press are the ones who really grow.
Growing up is becoming all that God has destined for you to be.
Eternity Question?
You will be measured not just by what you did but also by what you have not done yet or what you should have done
Wherever you are is good but it is not the best.
Most people use only a small fraction of their ability and rarely strive to reach their full potential.
Growing Forward – Moving to the Next Stage of Your Life (Become a Better Version)
If you don’t grow forward, you will grow backward.
If you don’t Press Forward, you will drift backward.
In this life, you are either experiencing Strain or you are experiencing Drain (Disuse Atrophy)
Move from your comfort zone to your growth zone (stretch zone)
Growth doesn’t come from staying in your comfort zone.
The Law of the Rubber Band – Rubber bands are only useful when they are stretched! That can also be said of us.
Are you Pressing or Coasting? e.g. The Bible Challenge.
You have to switch from I Can’t to Can I to How Can I?
Believe God for Bigger & Better Things (New Ground)
Fallow Ground – Unused or Untapped Potential.
Proverbs 13:23 NKJV, Jeremiah 4:3 NKJV
There is no progress in your comfort zone and there is comfort in your progress zone. If you want to grow and make progress you have to learn to be comfortable outside of your comfort zone.
Luke 12:49-50 NKJV
Either increase your tolerance of pain or reduce your vision to the level of pain you can only tolerate – Dale Bronner
You can’t achieve beyond the degree of your development, you don’t achieve goals, you grow into them.
2 Dimensions that God will stretch you.
- God wants you to be excellent but the problem is that the path to excellence is strain. Don’t let your bad experiences move you backward, let them grow you forward. Bad experience leads us to great growth.
1. Excellence is the ability to keep pushing and pressing in spite of the circumstances so that you can become exceptional.
2. Luke 2:52. Your life is too small for the big things God wants to do with you. God doesn’t grant large assignments to small characters – Richard Blackaby.
2. You need to become something (responsible) before God gives you what you are praying for. Matthew 5:38-43 NKJV. You need to grow in Love.
5 Things You Have to Practice
1. Love. Outreach. Love the unlovable. The love starts from your heart. If you don’t stretch yourself to love the unlovable, your life will be very small.
2. Life. Reaching and touching God. Prayer, entering into his presence. Make sacrifices in the place of prayer.
3. Laughter. Community. Caring for others not just yourself. If you are selfish you are not growing.
4. Stretching your Learning. Discipleship.
5. Stretch your leadership Capacity. Ability to take more pain. Isaiah 6:8 NKJV
