Hello everyone!
Like you, no doubt, I was hoping for a greater easing of COVID-19 Restrictions than were announced on Sunday just gone. There was some small easing of restrictions which is welcome, of course, but I had my sights set a bit higher than what we received.
If there is any encouragement in this latest announcement from our Premier it is that we continue to head in the right direction – on the statistics - even if progress is just incremental. That is a real positive, I think. Incremental improvement is welcome, it is positive and it raises hope for future announcements which could be sooner rather than later. Obviously, this is all far, far better than incremental decline.
Victorians have done it hard, and they have done our state proud by holding the line despite the smug sneering from other states and even a few foreign leaders.
As I sat thinking about this incremental improvement on Sunday afternoon before writing this, I felt Holy Spirit alert me to the importance of the incremental improvement in our new lives as believers – as ones born again. The incremental renewal and transformation that takes place in the believer as we walk with God allowing Holy Spirit to sanctify us, is a really important thing. None of us comes to faith and is instantly transformed into a sinless, spotless saint – even though we are considered saints by God …
1 Corinthians 1:2 “To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: …”
It’s a process. It’s a journey of self-discovery and of inheritance as we grow in God. Even though there are moments in our faith journey where we experience significant and life-changing breakthroughs in the defeat of sin in our lives as the self-life is withering, often these big breakthroughs, I have discovered in my experience, come from the months, sometimes longer, of incremental improvements. It is the same when we suddenly go to a deeper walk with God, or are surprisingly given a greater capacity for moving in the Spirit, and so on. So much is done in preparation for a breakthrough in what may appear to us to be such small and insignificant steps. But, often, we cannot see all that is happening, we’re not always able to appreciate how important a single incremental step can be in a process of many. After weeks, or months, of incremental changes there is an accumulative effect. Our “readiness factor” has been increased in kairos capacity to be ready for the breakthrough. And yes, sometimes, we are quite delightfully surprised by the joy of it when it arrives.
The danger in all of this incremental progress, is in not understanding it and becoming discouraged. Or, we can lose patience during difficult moments and discard as insignificant the small incremental change, or undervalue it. We can think nothing is happening. But, really, it is …
FINAL WORD
The apostle Paul mentions on several occasions the incremental change in the life of the one born again. I mentioned it in part 4 of the Open Heaven series of messages. He wrote this …
2 Corinthians 3:18 “And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
This incremental improvement in us, is called sanctification. It is a process initiated by Holy Spirit that withers the self-life (the sinful tendency of the sin nature) and allows the new nature of the new man or woman in Christ to be made fully manifest. Holy Spirit works this in us as we cooperate with Him. And yes, at times, it can feel as if not much is happening inside us when we feel like it’s three steps forward and two backward. But, in reality, there is a lot going on – the old nature does not wither easily. Think of it this way. We’ve all seen video footage of a landslip, or a landslide, that sent tonnes of earth and rock slithering down a mountainside onto a roadway after heavy rains. For days, perhaps, that hillside was soaked in rain, one drop at a time. Who knows which drops of rain fell that tipped the scales and triggered the landslide? At what point did one litre of water out of thousands of litres accumulating across the landscape, incrementally, trigger the slip? Who knows?
Likewise, who knows the point at which breakthrough comes in our spiritual walk as incremental changes have taken place within us? Decision by decision, repentance by repentance and the embrace of new truths one by one as we progressively discover them in God’s Word and apply them by faith poise us for breakthrough. But who knows that point? Sometimes we get a sense that something is about to happen, and that encourages us. But sometimes we don’t … We need to continue by faith, and not on what we don’t think is happening.
Don’t be discouraged in your walk with the Lord because change seems to be so incremental at times. Incremental improvement – which is what sanctification really is – is incredibly powerful. It accumulates and tips us towards breakthrough. It is also the most enduring kind of change because it can handle setbacks. Incremental sanctification adds spiritual substance to us that accumulates and gathers momentum unto breakthrough.
Of course, the reverse is also true. Incremental sinfulness and disobedience, or unbelief, though we’re born again, can become habitual … and eventually send us to hell. Again the apostle sounds a warning:
Romans 8:12-14 “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.”
As “born agains” incremental change is deceptive – whichever our direction. Don’t be fooled that nothing is happening … because it is.
You are so dearly loved.
Ps. Milton