How the Big Picture affects Growth

The application of redemption is the process of growth: The Bible begins with these three ideas; God as the source, relationship is primary, and God as the authority. In the big picture, God’s role was to be the source and provider. Our role was to depend on the source. In the fall, the created order was reversed. People became independent of the source, and become self-sufficient. They lost the primary relationship with God and with each other. They wanted to depend only on themselves. In trying to control life, they lost control of themselves. Through redemption, the created order was put back to the way God had intended it to be. For some of us the “fall” still reigns in our lives today. We can do all the right things like Bible study, prayer, and the rest and still not be “reconciled” to the way things are supposed to be. Even though we believe in God, we do not always look to Him in every area of our lives. God made us to be dependent on Him. To make life work, we must turn to the One who created life. We also must look to the body of Christ as another key ingredient to the process of growth and healing.

Judging vs. evaluation: Even though the created order was put back the way God had intended, we still want the role as judge. Judging has to do with “playing God.” When we judge we place ourselves above another. We’re condemning and creating our own standards. When we are judged, we no longer feel free to be ourselves and own our experience because of the fear of guilt, shame, and condemnation. Judgment makes us hide our experience and the truth of what is really going on with us. On the other hand, when we evaluate someone we are not placing ourselves above the other person. Instead we identify with the person as a fellow sinner and struggler, humbling ourselves as we realize that we are subject to temptation also. The three elements of helpful evaluation are humility, forgiveness, and correction. We humbly bow to God’s standard in evaluating each other and call each other to repentance.

Vulnerability and trust is part of growth: Relationships take effort. We want others to like us so we try to make them happy. Trying to make someone happy is trying to control their feelings. Control is often tied to fear. We fear change. We fear that people won’t like us and they will leave us. When we try to control others we lose control of ourselves. We make promises, argue, get angry, withdraw, or other methods. When we allow God to be in control, we are yielding to His control and we are to develop self-control. When we give up trying to control what is not in our control, we can regain control of what we were designed to control; ourselves. Self-control is the fruit or result of giving up God’s role and taking the role we were meant to have; yielding to God. We are to give up external control and regain internal control to have self-control. Often enough, we find that for life to work right, we have to discover and align ourselves to God’s ways of believing and trusting in Him to get out of our suffering. Instead of holding onto fear that you will lose control, what area(s) of your life do you need to let go of and instead, give it to God?