THE STAGES OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH

The speaker discusses the importance of spiritual growth and the stages of development in believers. They reference 1 John 2:12-14, which mentions children, young men, and fathers as categories of spiritual development. The speaker emphasizes the need for continual growth and compares it to the growth of a seed. They highlight the importance of being rooted in the love of God and the role of personal effort in spiritual growth. The goal is to become like Christ. The speaker also mentions the need for personal study and discernment of truth. Spiritual growth is seen as both a privilege and a responsibility. Good afternoon to everybody. We're not going to prolong. We're going to just dig right on into it. So let's see. We're going to go to 1 John 2, 12 through 14. It's going to be our foundation of scripture. And I guess y'all wonder why I never read the scriptures because I think all of us are literates. And so I'll just give you the scripture, and then in your leisure time, you can go back and read the scripture. And then plus it'd be easy to be on our app as well under our life application notes. There's something in the scripture. I think I need to read this one, though, because it talks about—well, let me just read it. It says, I am writing you liturgians because your sins are forgiven. You, for his name's sake, I'm sorry. I'm writing to you fathers because you know him who has been from the beginning. And I'm writing to you young men because you have overcome the evil one. And I have written to you children because you know the father. I have written to you fathers because you know him who has been from the beginning. And I have written to you young men because you are strong in the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. All right. So that's going to be our foundation where we start as far as our life application tonight. So we're talking about the stages of growth as a believer. I think that it's important for us to understand that anything that is not growing, what is it doing? If it ain't growing, it's doing what? It's dying. Anything that don't grow dies. I think as believers, it's important that we continue to grow in the grace of God. Now, growth is not a process you go through and it stops. It's a continual habitual thing that happens as long as you continue to be a believer, you'll forever grow. I guess you can't equate it to humans because I think after a certain time, we stop growing. After we reach a certain age, I believe that to be so. You go through your infant, toddler, what is that? Adolescent, teenager, and then once you reach adulthood, there's no more growth. So that wouldn't be a good analogy. But as it relates to us being in the spirit and as it relates to us being sons of God, we're totally the opposite because we continue to grow spiritually. Because if we think about what God created when he created us in the book of Genesis, before he even gave us these bodies, we were created as spirit. And then he created even then two spirits. The Bible says he created male and female. Let us create men in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion over all of the earth. That was, I think that's Genesis 1 and 8 or either 1 and 18, one of those two. So he gave us the dominion on earth and he created us first a spirit. That's the point I'm making. It wasn't until maybe chapter 2 that we got what we call the bodies. He drew on the ground the formation of man, made us out of dirt, out of clay. He put the spirit into us and then he breathed Ruach, which is the breath of God. He gave us his breath and his life. So as long as we are believers in Christ, we'll continue to grow in God. There's always something about God that we're going to continue to learn about him as long as we have his spirit. That's called revelation, okay? You always obtain revelation in knowing God. Revelation is when your eyes become open to something. It's revealed to you because ignorance causes things to be hidden from us. They say if you want to know, I don't see what is that saying when they talk about giving somebody a book and you want to keep a person ignorant, then hand them a book. Because the average person ain't going to pick up a book and read. The average person is not going to sit there and read material. It's boring. It's time-consuming. But if you want to know knowledge, if you want to grow in a specific area, then we'll do what it takes in order to obtain the knowledge as we talked about in our previous studies. We'll obtain the knowledge, we'll get the knowledge, and then we'll use the knowledge and apply it in the proper areas of our life, and that's called wisdom, okay? Now the first thing that jumps out when we look at 1 John, the scripts I just read, is that it's talking about a sequence here. It talks about children, it talks about young men, and then it talks about fathers. So this is a parent. It starts, verse 12, it mentions little children. Then in verse 13 and 14 it references they are made to be fathers and then young men, and that adds an additional mention of children in verse 13. So it adds up to three categories of spiritual development, okay? So first the children, the young men, then the fathers. So you're looking at three stages of spiritual development as Paul is writing to these believers. When we think about spiritual life, we think about growth. It shouldn't surprise us that when we think about life in any formation, life is equal to growth, and growth is evidence of life. When we plant a seed into the ground, it grows up to be a full-sized plant. Now just because, now I said this and I use this analogy oftentimes, that when you plant a seed in the ground and just because you don't see it on the surface or come up from the ground, does that mean that it's dead? That's a question. You plant something and you go and you don't see any evidence in the soil, does it mean that the plant is dead? No, it doesn't, because life begins in the ground first. What that seed does is the seed becomes life as you water it. It becomes life. It goes down into the ground, and it takes what's called a root. When it goes down, then it grows up, all right, because it has to have a foundation in order to sustain it and in order for it to obtain nutrients to continue to grow, all right? This is why it takes root, because the root helps it to gain what it needs to gain in order for it to continue to grow. And when it has root, it'll continue to grow as long as it's supplied what it needs to grow. I think that as believers, I don't think that this is opinionated, this is factual, but as believers, we should be rooted and grounded in the love of God. Now, why the love of God? Because the love of God is the center, the center focal point of everything about God. It surrounds his love. And so when we're rooted in the love of God, we take on the heart and we take on the mind of God, and then it continues to help us to develop and continue to help us to grow as believers, all right? Life essentially can be defined as a dynamic of development or a dynamic of growth. Life is equal to growth. Where there's life, there's growth. Where there's growth, there's life, okay? And this is certainly true in the spiritual realm. God gave us our spiritual life in Christ, and he intends for that life that he's given us as believers to grow. He didn't give us our life for it to sit and for it to die out, all right? He gave us this life for us to grow and for this life to mature. Excuse that phone. One of the difficult things I think that we encounter in the human realm is retardation, all right, or some kind of deformity that prevents a child from physically developing mentally. And this is a sad reality that most people face in life. But there's also what I believe to be spiritual retardation. The failure to grow spiritually is equally tragic to what they would call retardation or some type of deformity, all right? And I don't believe that it's because the person is incompetent of learning a person that they call retarded. I hate that word, but that's what they call it. But I just think that the methods by which the person can understand and retain knowledge should be changed. And so this is why they have what's called special education. Now, does that always work? I don't think so. But they use these terms and these methods to help a person retain knowledge. But I'm not attacking it from that point. The point that I'm attacking spiritual retardation is anything that you don't feed, it becomes deformed. That's the area I want you to understand. If we don't feed our spiritual being, it becomes deformed. Now, life application, I'm just going to throw this out there, is one form of you feeding your spiritual being. But then there's work that has to be done, there's maintenance that has to be done individually and personally that helps you grow. Okay? You can listen to me, you can listen to TD Jakes or whomever your heart desires to listen to on a weekly basis, on a daily basis. But at some point, that's just giving you necessary tools and necessary keys in order to encourage you to dig deeper into the word, to dig deeper into prayer, to dig deeper into relationship. All right? Paul said this in the word, that he wants the people to work out their own soul salvation. In other words, I can teach you. This is what Paul is telling the church. I can teach you, but sometimes you've got to go on your own and you've got to search the scripture out. You've got to search the word out, because that's going to be beneficial to you. The Bible even says, study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that need not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. How can I rightly divide something that I know nothing about? I have to first know what's true in order for me to discern what's not true. You have to know truth in order to discern what's not true. Because if you don't know truth, anything, any wind of doctrine can come and it'll sound like it's true to you. Y'all got me? Hello? Am I muted? I'm listening. Okay. All right. All right. I'm trying to make sure y'all can hear me. All right. So, it requires maintenance on our part for us to be able to grow spiritually. Now, spiritual growth, then, it is a privilege, but it's also an obligation. It's a responsibility that we as believers must take on. And the goal of our spiritual development is that we become like Christ. That's our goal. Let me say this. Now, in the church, we've been so, and many of you on the line have been in ministries. And those ministries have made it to be about how they have grown in God. But it's like they have this supernatural power. And they make you feel less than a believer because you're not on the level that they are on. And they're so anointing and they're just so this. And they're showing their things about their being so blessed. But that's not how God wants us to obtain spiritual growth. Because having things, watch this. Having things does not necessarily mean you've grown. And having things does not necessarily mean that God is blessing you. Because the devil can give you things just like God can, but the devil has motives and agendas behind what he gives you. He can give you a car. He can give you a house. You can have all the women. You can have all the men. You can have all the luxuries of life and still go to hell. All right? So having things cannot be measured by growth. All right? How we measure growth is when we look at ourselves, there has to be a spiritual mirror in all of our lives, your life and my life. When I look at myself, how much like Christ do I look? Okay? If there is no resemblance, when you look at yourself spiritually of Christ, we've got more work to do. All right? We've got more work to do. If we look at ourselves and we can't see a resemblance of Christ in our life, that means we have more work to do. We've got a little bit more way to keep going. Don't get discouraged, though. See? Because we feel like we've failed if we look at ourselves and I'm not like Christ. No, it has not failed because you have to continue to grow, have to continue to walk in righteousness, have to continue to be, you know, to be God-like in order to obtain these things in order for us to be Christ-like. Now, will we ever be perfect? I don't think so. Should we strive for perfection? Yes. And let me say this, and then I'm going back to my notes. The reason why I don't believe we'll be perfect is because if God perfects us and he makes us to the point where we are sinless, then we'll think that we're God. All right? So what I believe, that in our believer's life, there are so many little issues that go on, that there's issues that's in each and every one of our lives we don't even understand. We see the big stuff, but there are so many so much small stuff that we don't recognize and that people around us don't even recognize. So I believe God starts working on stuff when he works on our believer's life at the root, because people only see what you do on the surface, but they don't know what's hidden behind or underneath the soil, in other words. So I believe God starts his work from underneath the ground, and I'm talking about in spirit, I'm not talking about in natural, underneath the ground of your soul. He starts, goes in, and he starts rooting out those deep things that's caught up in our soul, and he starts working on those things. And so at that point, we start becoming perfect. Okay? We start becoming perfect. So we accomplish this on this level, but then we find out, oh, there's another issue that we have, so we accomplish that. Then we find out, oh, there's another issue that we have, so we accomplish that. So your spiritual growth or our spiritual growth in Christ is a constant thing that we have to do on a daily, on a weekly, on a monthly, on a yearly basis. In other words, a 365-day thing is what we're doing, working on becoming perfect. We'll never be complete perfect, completely perfect, or we'll never be whole until the day that we see Jesus Christ. Okay? But other than that, we're going to continue to make mistakes. There's a sin of commission, a sin of omission. So those two things are going to always be prevalent in our life. But I always try to make the believers understand that there's a difference between sinning and having a sin lifestyle. A sin is something that we commit, we can ask for forgiveness, we can repent, and we're still in our place with God. A sin nature is something that's done habitually. That means you constantly offend God by your sin. Okay? That is a sinner. Okay? A person that has a habitual lifestyle to offend God by their actions or by their sin. That person is a sinner. But a person that sins could be a believer that simply made a mistake. Because a lot of times, in the way life has been set up, we make mistakes because of Adam, what he did, and we grow from our mistakes. Now how you know you're growing is when you're able to make a mistake and you're able to see your mistake and you're able to grow and you can avoid that particular area in your life. Okay? That's how you know you're growing. And when the temptation of this thing comes, you're able to say, you know what, it got me once, it ain't going to get me this time. Lord, you know I need help in this area. You'll call up some other believers that you can trust and say, hey, listen, I'm going through this, this, this, and the other. I need you to pray with me because I don't want to get into temptation. That's how you know you're growing. All right? So, it is God's ultimate plan for our life that we become like Jesus Christ. Now the Lord in his church has given us some gifts by which to help to edify and equip the saints for the work of service and to build up the body of Christ. Those gifts are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers. They are not offices, they are gifts. Each one of these gifts functions on a different level. All right? But they all work hand in hand together to edify, which means to build up, to equip, to encourage the church and to help to build up the body of Christ. And the purpose of that was that we all can obtain the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God to mature us as believers. That's the purpose of that. Okay? So, we all grow in the knowledge of the faith and that we can learn to be Christ-like. Okay? Now, when we talk about sanctification, because sanctification is one of the things that Peter talks about in verse 2 and 2, he says that to desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow by. Just as babies desire milk in order to grow, we should desire the milk of the Word, which is our food, so that we can grow spiritually. Spiritual growth in another way is to describe what we call sanctification. And sanctification, there are different elements of sanctification. There's a kind of positional sanctification that occurs when you are saved. When you are set apart from sin into a new state of mind and we're covered by righteousness, and that type of sanctification is called salvation. And then there's a future sanctification, which is the ultimate sanctification, which is what I was talking about when we become perfect in Christ, is when we have been totally separated from our sins and we're glorified by Jesus Christ. Okay? So, that's the third level of sanctification. We got any questions so far? So, let me say this. Our spiritual growth has nothing to do with us standing before God. As a spiritual son, and whatever our process of development is, it does not impact our standing before God. Because when God deems us to be righteous, and when I say standing before God, that means when God sees you as being righteous, when he sees you as being in right standing, okay, your growth and how much you grow, how much you learn, how much you obtain, he don't see that. The only thing he sees is that you're in right standing. Okay? So, don't let people fool you in church to think that somebody's in a more higher place than you and God. All of us are on the same level. Because when he sees us, the only thing he sees is what? Right. That's why they say God has no respect of person. He's not going to deem me higher than you because I'm the teacher. When we're all being justified by God and we're all being deemed righteous because of the blood of Jesus Christ, guess what? We're all on the same level. Just some of us have been called to teach. Some of us have been called to preach. Somebody has to lead the way. But does that mean I'm more righteous than you? No. All right? All right? Y'all got comments right there? Having said that, spiritual growth also has nothing to do with God's love for you. God's love is universal. God's love is agape. God's love is foundational, which means his love does not change for us. He doesn't care how much you go to church. He doesn't care how much he gives you his spirit. His love for you ain't going to be any greater for me than it is for you or any greater for you than it is for me. He loves us all the same. That's why in God there's no big I's. There is no little you. He loves us all the same. You know, in church I used to think that people try to put preachers and those that are anointed and those that are gifted by God to lead God's people. They put us on the pedestal, and they make people feel like we should be, you know, I'm the big dog when I come through. And we want people to fall down and worship us and esteem us higher than others. But those of us that are gifted by God, guess what we are? We are servants of God to the people of God. If I'm a prophet, if I'm an apostle, I'm a gift to you. You're not my gift. I'm your gift. God gave me to you. Understand that? So that means I'm not to be set on no pedestal and you falling down with rose petals and all that stuff because, oh, the man of God is here. No. I'm given to the body of Christ as a servant to do the work of the Lord, to help build us, to help edify the people of God. Back to my point. All of us are on the same level. All right? And when we understand that, our perspective about how we view other people have changed. Because you can't make me feel less than you because I'm just like you. We're on the same level. Once I have Christ and Christ has deemed me righteous, I'm sanctified, I'm just like you. All right? Another attitude you have to take when you know who you are in God goes back to what we talked about Thursday, knowing who you are in God. Yeah, I may have some things that I don't know. You may know some things and God may revelate some things to you a little bit more than he does me. But as it comes to standing before him and how he sees us, we're all the same. Ain't no heaven up there for the apostles. This part, this section over here is for the prophets. And then just y'all, that's just the lay members. Y'all got a section way back over there underneath the trees over in heaven. No. We're all on the same level. When we get to heaven, we're going to all be doing the same thing. Because guess what? When we stand before God on that day, he ain't going to call me prophet. Guess what? He ain't going to call me Travis because he gave me Travis to identify me on the earth. He's going to tell me servant. Well done. All right. I got off. I'm sorry. Y'all have to forgive me. I get caught up. So let me go here. It has nothing to do with time. Spiritual growth has nothing to do with time. All of us, even though salvation puts us on the same level, God's timing and his process is a little bit different concerning each person. So just because some person was instantaneously delivered from something does not necessarily mean that sister neck bone, her salvation or her deliverance is going to come with her deliverance. Not a salvation. Her deliverance is not going to come the same way it came through me. Because some people are tied to have some deeper strongholds than others. Some people have some things in their life that's a little bit more in depth than others. And then watch this. Whom much is given, much is required. Then the call of God that's on a person's life requires God to look at that person a little bit deeper, to work with them a little bit deeper. Because now you've got to lead the folks. Now, even though we're all on the same level, I'm requiring much more from you than I am them. I'm holding you accountable for you and them. That's what that means. Accountability. So watch this. I'm going to teach and I'm going to make sure that I'm the teacher. Then I'm accountable for me and I'm also accountable for you. So if you fall by the wayside and the Lord has called me to lead you and I fail to do so, your blood is required of my hand. Now, that don't give you a pass. That just means that your blood is required of my hand as well. Because God is going to say what I told you to say and you didn't say it. So now because they failed, you're responsible. All right? So that's what whom much is given, much is required. That's what that means. But it has nothing to do with time. So don't let people immaturely rush you into your deliverance because they feel like it should be done in their time. You let God process you. And I say this and I'm going to continue to say this and this is going to be my stance. All I can do is teach and I can only let God change people. I'm not going to get up here and throw stones, get up here and try to be little people because I may or may not know what somebody does. Or because I may or may not see something in the spirit concerning somebody. I'm just going to keep teaching God's love. God says teach my love. Let my love show them where they're coming short and where they're missing my love. That's why it says all have sinned. That's past tense. That's not saying all sin and fall short. It's saying all have. Which means before Jesus came and he redeemed us, we fell short. That does not mean now that we fall short. That means that we fell short then because of the glory of God. Now we have no excuse. All right? So timing, don't let people try to push you into a point because they, you know, it happened to them a certain way. So now if you ain't doing it this way, you ain't doing it right. Well, what is the right way? Let me ask you that. So if I'm getting delivered and God is dealing with me on something, what is the right way? All right? There is no right way. The only right way is God's way. And that's the only way. Because God's timing. Watch this. Let me say this and then I'm going to move on to my points. I got 15 minutes. I think I'm doing good tonight. I got 15 minutes, so watch this. So God's timing and what God's people get in trouble because, and many pastors are dead right now because they try to interfere with God's timing. And they start messing with God's plan and his process, how he deals with people. And God said, I'm not going to let you mess up this process. I'm not going to let you do this. They try to manipulate people to try to get them under your control. That's the same as witchcraft. That's the same as being in a cult. That's the same as being with Jim Jones and them folks. When you start messing with God's process, see, a dangerous thing for us to fall into is to start trying to deal with people's process, how God is dealing with them, and then we try to dictate and insert our own ideology of how we think it's supposed to go. Because it went this way for this person. It may not work this way for that person. It went this way for me. It may not work that way for you. So I can't get in God's timing. I just got to allow God to do what he needs to do in his timing. And the only thing I can do is just be that encourager. Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The Word of God says, how can they hear without a preacher? But how can you preach? I'm sorry. Okay. Okay, so you're talking about timing. But, you know, I know that a lot of us probably have been to churches, and preachers are saying, issue of season, issue of season. But how does he know if how is everybody's season the same? You know what I'm saying? Because when they're giving a word or whatever, and they're saying, issue of season, issue of season, how is the layperson supposed to know that it's their season? Well, I think preachers do that as a motivational or inspirational message. But all of us are on different levels. Now, it could be all of our season to come up to our next level, because, again, all of us are not on the same level. So, however, your growth process is, Mr. Delores, Mr. Neal, Brother Willie, all of you have different growth levels and different growth processes. So, the universal word, issue of season, may be now is your time to come up to your next level. But all of us not on the same level as far as our growth and as far as how God processes us, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, I think those type of words that come around should come around with clarity, because there are some people that are a little bit farther advanced as far as their process with God. But when God sees us, see, our developmental process is different from the finished process, because God don't see the developmental part. He only sees the righteous part. And when you fall or you become blemished from that by sin, he can't see righteous no more. All he sees is sin. So, then that thing has to be corrected in order for him to be able to see righteous again. God is just one way. You know, and I know people like to tend to think that God is schizophrenic and he's bipolar, he changes his mind. God's mind never changes. When he sees you, he sees you that way. The only thing that causes God to see different is sin. That's it. But when he looks at each and every one of us on this phone and righteousness, the blood of Christ has redeemed us and has made us righteous, that's all God sees. Now, the process of how we get there, he ain't looking at that. All God sees, this is my son, this is my child, and they have been made right. That's all he sees. All right. I don't know if that makes sense to you. I tried to. So, then what goes to my next point, it has nothing to do with our knowledge. Okay. Knowledge brings you into growth. Knowledge gives you the tools, per se, to help you get to where you need to be spiritually. Okay. Acquiring biblical information or biblical theology or systematic theology, accumulated biblical information, all these things are not what's going to help you. It's not going to be what God looks at, how much you know. A lot of people that know can spit the Bible out verbatim. I mean, you can just touch them, and they can tell you this. They can give you the history of it. They have the letter. The Bible says this. The Word of God says, the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life. Other words, the Pharisees and the Sadducees that were there with Jesus, they knew the Messiah was coming. They knew somebody was coming that was going to redeem them, but they rejected the one that came. So, they knew the Word, but they had nothing else other than what was in the law. The law would tell you that when you do this, that's it, you're dead. There was no redemption outside of the law. There was nothing to bring us back to God outside of the law. If you offended the law, that was it. I mean, you were just cut off. It was even in those days, they taught us. My auntie, the one that taught us on the line, told us as children, she'd say the law inside of the law was when children disobeyed their parents, they didn't get no switch and go and put nothing to their bad side. They took them to the cliff and threw them off. The law said they could do that. And we were sitting there like, what? You know, I remember stuff that she taught us as children, okay? But that was the law. The law said, if you pluck my eye out, my right eye, I can get you and I can pluck your right eye out. An eye for an eye, you knock my tooth out, I can come knock your tooth out. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. That's what the law taught us. If they did it to you, you do it to them. And you're justified by the law. Jesus came and changed, well, he didn't change it, he enhanced it. He enhanced the law with love, grace, and mercy. So Jesus said, if they slap you on one cheek, turn and give them the other cheek, let them slap that one too. Jesus said, how many times should I forgive my brother that offended me in one day? Seventy times seven. It's very highly unlikely that a person is going to offend you 490 times in one day. If you do, you crazy if you let them. But Jesus was just giving them the concept of telling them that there is no end to how many times a person can offend you and you forgive them. That's what he was telling them. So Jesus came to enhance the law, to add something to the law. He didn't change it. He added to the law grace, mercy, and love because there was no love inside of the law. So having knowledge only tells you what the law says. And having knowledge will tell you what the word says, and even the Pharisees knew the word. But when God himself or the Son of God was walking with them every day, talking with them every day, they were seeing the miracles that Jesus performed and they still did not believe. So they had the love, but they had no life because the only thing that can give life is the spirit. Alright, any questions? Next thing I want you to know, spiritual growth has nothing to do with activities. It doesn't matter how long you go to church, if you sing in the choir, you usher in the usher board, or whatever you do, that ain't going to help you grow. You're just going through formations. You're just going through rituals or whatever, or religious acts. It doesn't mean we're growing. There are people singing in the choir, staying on the same level that they were when they first came to church. They go to church, but there ain't no growth. They hear the preacher, and I hear people all the time say, oh, the pastor know he preach. So I'm smart. I ask, well, what did he preach about? I don't know, but that end know he preach. Well, what did he preach about? He was going about how he sound. Well, what did he say that's going to help your life tomorrow when you run into a brick wall and you don't know what to do? What has he said today that's going to help you tomorrow? And my prayer is when we have these life application studies, that I can help you with something that's going to help you in your life. Because as believers, believe it or not, even though we belong to God, we still have real life issues here on earth that we have to deal with. We still get depressed. We still cry. We still have feelings. Just because we belong to God don't mean we don't have no feelings. And just everything about our natural life just went out the door because I'm all spirit. We still hurt. We still cry. We still have pain. We're still human. Okay? And there are real life issues that we have to deal with. And so these life application skills is called life application because we take what we learn and we apply it to our life when needed. All right? It has nothing to do with what we do. All right? So let me go down to the good part. Now, I cut us. Now let me build us up. So Paul talks about a believer's growth and even Paul began to talk about the war between the flesh and the spirit. Okay? How he says the flesh is enmity against God. In other words, the flesh is always in constant, what do you call it, contradiction to God. And that could be another word of enmity. The flesh is always warring against God. But Paul says this, spiritual growth can be defined as this. All right? So here comes the good part because, you know, I tore you down. Let's build us up. Paul talks about in 1 Timothy 6 and 11, following after righteousness is how we grow. In other words, what does it mean when we follow after righteousness? That means we seek it. We seek righteousness. We seek to be in right place with God that helps us to grow. Because in the process of me seeking righteousness or being in right standing with God, I'm going to make my mistakes. I'm going to be bumped. I'm going to be bruised. But how I learn from that is when I learn that this is wrong, this offended God, I get up from that point. I turn away from sin and I say, Lord, okay, I failed this. Help me to make it through this the next time I'm tried with this. And when that situation comes again, I'm an overcomer. I perfected that in my life. So now let's move on to stage number two. See what I'm saying? So seeking out the righteousness is what's called what helps us with spiritual growth. Paul even talks about he calls it transforming or being transformed by renewing of the mind so that we can be perfected in holiness and in the fear of God. And you'll find that in Romans chapter 2. He calls it protecting holiness in the fear of God. Okay? So how do we protect holiness in the fear of God? We've got to keep our minds renewed. Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. In other words, when the world changes, I have to change my mind to automatically be conditioned to the world's tactics and what the world says. And even more so now because the world is forming an agenda or has formed an agenda that is anti-Christ. They're doing it so sneaky. They're doing it so behind the scenes until when that thing is unleashed, it's going to look like nothing wrong with it. I told the believers in 2020, I believe, I said, y'all be careful because they're going to make this stuff look like it's okay. Ain't nothing wrong with it. It's okay to do it. But all along, there's an agenda to kill you out, to grab you into something, get you caught in it, and then kill you in it. That's why the enemy's agenda is to steal, to kill, and to destroy. This is why we have to have our minds conditioned on the things of God, and we have to have our minds conditioned to be in right standing with God. And also, we have to have the discernment of God so we'll know what's him and what's not him. Why I said that? Because there's somebody coming sooner or later. He just hasn't arose yet that's going to say he's Jesus. And we got to have discernment to know what's Jesus Christ and what's not. Now, watch this. This person is coming. He's going to perform miracles. He's going to do many wonderful things, and it's going to look like he's the real thing. But he's anti-Christ because his agenda is going to be totally against God. He's going to push Satan's agenda. That's how you're going to know it's not God. You got to have the Word of God. You got to know the Word of God to know that when this stuff starts, you're going to say, no, that ain't God. But you got to be able to know that. You got to be able to still function in your everyday life but still be able to process spiritual stuff at the same time. When you go to work and they tell you, oh, well, today, you know, we know y'all work two weeks, but we better give you a check because, bro, Willie, you ain't got the chip yet. But we don't have to hold your money because this is the only way we can pay you. No man can buy, sell, or trade without the mark of the beast. All right? These are things to think about. I don't want to go too deep into that. We'll have a study just on that by itself. But these are things to look for. Huh? I just said that's right. I was agreeing with you. These are things to look for in the end time. This is why these messages are coming, that we renew our mind. And we can't think just like the world thinks because if we think like the world thinks, even though we're in the process of being overtaken by this antichrist, this agenda that's coming into the world. Okay? And at this point in time, we cannot afford to straddle the fence like the old people used to say back in the day. They don't talk like that no more because they just say, oh, can't nobody stop me from this. They can't nobody just allow it. But a long time ago, the old people used to tell us you can't straddle the fence. Where are them folks at now? I guess they done died off. They tell you you're going to either have to be one way or the other. You can't be on both sides of the fence. The reason behind that is you may get across the fence and it may look like it's God and when you get there, you find out it's not God. The enemy plays for keep. Know that. Know that. He plays for keep. So if he gets you caught into something, he wants to get you there so that he can take you out in that. All right. I saw in the spirit realm the other day, and I'm moving off of this, where a certain set of people, when they get caught in things, the enemy goes to like a chalkboard and just put a check by their name. I told another prophet that, and I guess the impact of what I was saying didn't hit him as it should have. I say these people have already been doomed because why did? They already been reprobated, which means they can't change. They couldn't change if they wanted to change because God turned them over, according to Romans chapter 1, verse 28. Everything I tell you is biblical. Romans chapter 1, verse 28, when he said they would not retain the knowledge of God, they would not turn to God, and they would not do the things that God said for them to do. God turned them over to a reprobated mind. That's Bible. That ain't Brown. That's Bible. And those people that have been turned over to a reprobated mind, they just got a check by their name. These folks still preaching. These folks still singing and doing the normal stuff that Christians, because believers don't do this, normal stuff that Christians do, but the check by their name in hell. Just like your name could be signed in the Lamb book of life, the devil got his book too, believe that. All right? So enough of the doom, the gloom, and the destruction. Let's go back to growing. So we grow by renewing our minds. And then in Philippians 3 and 14, we press toward the mark of the high covenant, which is in Jesus Christ. And then Colossians 2 and 7 says that we are to be built up in the faith. How can we be built up in the faith? How can they hear without a preacher? How can he preach except he be sent? And the first beginning of that says, faith comes by hearing, and then there's a, what is that thing, I think the dot with the comma, what do you call that thing? Semicolon. And then hearing by the word of God. All right? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. In other words, you can't hear unless you had a word. That's the revelation to that. Faith comes by hearing, and you get your hearing by the word of God. Let them that have an ear hear what the Spirit is saying. All right? So that's how we grow. We grow in righteousness by seeking out the righteousness. We grow by transforming our minds. And we grow by pressing toward the north. And we grow by building up the faith. And the way to build your faith, and I'm closing on this note, I'm five blocks out. This is long, and I ain't going to be able to finish it. The way you build up your faith is a faith that has been tried is a true faith. When you're at a point, and you're at a place in your life, and you'll believe with walk that your faith is shaken, or it's been shaken, you're in that situation. I've been in situations where I wondered if I was even saved. When you get to that point, and your faith has been tried, but yet you hold on to it, that's how you know that your faith is going to be stronger, and that you've got pure, genuine faith. If it ain't never tried, it ain't faith. All right? Just to say I have faith, and ain't nothing going on, it ain't serving you no purpose. Faith without works is dead. What is the works? Believing. That's the works. Keep believing. In other words, you know, if you need a job, you got faith. When you fill out that application, you come out and say, God is mine, I got it. You need a car, you go to the lot. God is mine, I got it. You need a house, you go to the realtor, it's mine, I got it. Want to know why? Because it's in your mouth. It's in your mouth, and it's in your hands. Whatever you say as a believer is yours. If you believe that, then the sky is the limit. All right?