Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents
Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 16 – Fixing our eyes
Created to grow
[Bible references: 1 Samuel 2:26; Psalm 92:12-15; 147:8; Isaiah 61:11; Mark 26; Luke 2:22-52; 1 Corinthians 3:6-9; Ephesians 4:11-16; Colossians 1:3-14; 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4; James 1:13-15; 1 Peter 2:1-3; 2 Peter 3:17-18]
Many times, we imagine the first humans to have been created as fully mature adults, but perhaps they were not. One of the church fathers, Irenaeus contemplated that the first humans were not initially created as mature adults, but as youth who would have the opportunity to experience the process of becoming mature.
“Because they [humanity] come later, they are immature; as such they are inexperienced and not trained to perfect understanding. A mother, for example, can provide perfect food for a child, but at that point he cannot digest food which is suitable for someone older. Similarly, God himself certainly could have provided humanity with perfection from the beginning. Humanity, however, was immature and unable to lay hold of it …
“Through this system, such arrangement, and this kind of governance, humanity was created according to the image and established in the likeness of the uncreated God. The Father decided and commanded; the Son molded and shaped; the Spirit nourished and developed. Humanity slowly progresses, approaches perfection, and draws near to the uncreated God. The perfect is the uncreated, God. It was therefore appropriate for humanity first to be made, being made to grow, and having grown to be strengthened, being stronger to multiply, having multiplied to recover from illness, having recovered to be glorified, and once glorified to see its Lord. God is the one who is going to be seen; the vision of God produces incorruptibility; incorruptibility makes a person approach God.”[1]
So here we see that the process of maturity is linked to the process of transformation, the process in which we can become more like our Creator. Moreover, as part of that process, He desires that we join Him in His creative work of love, expanding His kingdom into the entire world.
[1] Irenaeus, “Adv. Hareresies,” 4:38
Observe
Read Psalm 92. How should we bear fruit in our old age?
Dancing In The Kingdom 