{"id":45097,"date":"2022-10-01T01:40:07","date_gmt":"2022-10-01T06:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/which-direction-are-we-growing-bible-study\/"},"modified":"2022-10-01T01:40:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-01T06:40:07","slug":"which-direction-are-we-growing-bible-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/which-direction-are-we-growing-bible-study\/","title":{"rendered":"Which Direction Are We Growing? &#8211; Bible study"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From life&#8217;s experiences, we know that some folks grow old gracefully, while others become grouchy and ill-tempered. Knowing this, it&#8217;s important for us as Christians to know which direction we&#8217;re growing, spiritually speaking.<\/p>\n<p>People don&#8217;t get irritable and short-tempered merely because they&#8217;re getting older. Aging has very little to do with folks being hypercritical and cranky. No, it&#8217;s more likely that we&#8217;ve become what we&#8217;ve <strong>allowed<\/strong> ourselves to become through various <strong>habits<\/strong> that we&#8217;ve acquired through the years, whether good or bad.<\/p>\n<p>Paul gives us an eternal principle when he writes, &#8220;He who sows to his flesh will &#8230;. reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will &#8230;. reap everlasting life&#8221; (Gal. 6:8).<\/p>\n<p>Folks who cater to self-interest and think only of themselves, are sowing seeds that will produce a harvest of misery  not only in themselves, but also in others.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, those who love God and demonstrate care and concern for others, are sowing seeds that will eventually yield a harvest of <strong>joy<\/strong> (2 Corinthians 2:1-4; Philippians 2:1-2; Philippians 4:1; Philemon 1:19-20 KJV; 3 John 1:1-4).<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the choices we make, Irish author and scholar C.S. Lewis once observed, &#8220;Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>So the question we need to ask ourselves is: &#8220;Which direction are we growing?&#8221; Let us choose to willingly submit our wills to God each day (cf. Luke 22:42; John 5:30; John 6:38), asking Him to give us strength to live for Him and for others (Philippians 4:13).<\/p>\n<p>If we will acquire this attitude, we will &#8220;grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ&#8221; (2 Peter 3:18), and be a blessing to others (1 Thessalonians 1:1-10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From life&#8217;s experiences, we know that some folks grow old gracefully, while others become grouchy and ill-tempered. Knowing this, it&#8217;s important for us as Christians to know which direction we&#8217;re growing, spiritually speaking. People don&#8217;t get irritable and short-tempered merely because they&#8217;re getting older. Aging has very little to do with folks being hypercritical and &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/which-direction-are-we-growing-bible-study\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Which Direction Are We Growing? &#8211; Bible study&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}