A Moment With Pastor Fred

Emmeline, my granddaughter, has just learned to walk – at first there were some wobbly legs, several steps and falls. She would get back up, only to fall again. Her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends – all responded with delight, excitement and cheers. No one condemned or ridiculed her for not taking more steps or bigger steps. No one disdained her for walking slowly. Now she’s all over the place!

O dear friends, let us have the same delight and excitement in our own baby steps – or the baby steps of others. How’s your spiritual growth going these days?  Many of us want our growth to be quick, obvious and grand, but that’s not how the Christian walk usually goes. It’s slow, gradual and marked by falls. No one is justifying sin here – we’re simply acknowledging that our sanctification is progressive. 1 Jn 2:1, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” The work of Christ in our hearts is incomplete. Only when we are glorified will the process be finished. Until then baby steps.

Each step we take in the Christian walk is a testimony of God’s faithfulness. Biblical counselor Esther Lui writes, “This is our journey of hope in our unworthiness: to know the love of our God to know that his promises are for us, to hope in and live out of the victory Christ secured for us … through many, many baby steps.”

Prov 24:16, “for the righteous falls seven times and rises again.” Gal 5:25, If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.