Good News: Growing as a Christian is Not About Trying Harder
Good News: Growing as a Christian is Not About Trying Harder
This week I’m sharing a devotional over at Club31Women about spiritual growth. Here’s an excerpt.
Growing as a believer is not about trying harder. It’s about letting go of control and allowing God to do the work in you.
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
The summer before my junior year in college I had an opportunity to travel to Europe with my 3 best friends. We sailed on a ship crammed with 1500 college students for 10 days. Yes, it was one big “party boat” followed by 2 months of riding trains, hitchhiking, mountain climbing, youth hostels, and eating on $5.00 a day. OK, this was in the “old days” when travel was safe and food cheap. Cheap food meant bakery shops. I gained 10 pounds on our slim budget!
Photo by Léonard Cotte on Unsplash. It was a glorious summer, a dream come true -- yet the most significant event for me was a decision I made to ask Christ into my life. Although I had grown up in a believing home, my faith was more of an inherited faith than a personal faith. On the ship, I met 2 guys who shocked me by asking, “Susan, are you a Christian?” What a weird question, I thought, and these guys are cute! I responded, “I think I am. I hope I am. I believe in Jesus.” What was obvious was that I lacked the assurance of my salvation and what became clear was that I needed to ask Christ to come into my heart personally (Revelation 3:20). I did this silently as my friend prayed aloud on my behalf. (It felt too awkward for me to do it out loud.) For the first time, I felt I could say that I was a believer and that I knew that one day I’d go to heaven, not because I was good, but because I was forgiven. And I had the assurance that Jesus would never leave me. (Hebrews 13:5)