{"id":2850,"date":"2016-09-21T14:41:35","date_gmt":"2016-09-21T14:41:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/?p=2850"},"modified":"2016-09-21T14:41:35","modified_gmt":"2016-09-21T14:41:35","slug":"how-to-help-someone-grow-we-have-all-we-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/?p=2850","title":{"rendered":"How To Help Someone Grow – (We have all we need)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"spiritual-growth\"As we have been focusing the last few weeks on discipleship, I would like to look a little at how we help people grow in their spiritual lives. After all, that is our goal in discipleship, to help someone grow to the point that they can in turn help others do the same. Growth is not an easy thing though, even for us personally, and much more so when we try and help someone else grow. How do we take someone from where they are, and help them become what they should be? It can be an elusive task, and something that is very frustrating if we don\u2019t know where to start.
\nAs my children have grown, I have realized that one of the most challenging things we do as parents is put together things. Sometimes I think that toy makers get joy out of making parents lives difficult. Take legos for example. When I was a kid I just remember getting a box of square legos and I had to have imagination to make something out of them, but now you almost have to have an engineering degree to put the things together. You have to follow each step exactly using the exact right piece or you will end up with the dreaded extra piece that you have no idea where it goes. When I put these things together the only thing that I can say is, \u201cThank goodness for the instructions.\u201d Although, they can be difficult to follow, at least they can keep you on the right track. How much more could we say that the instruction manual that God has left us is important in the process of helping someone else grow? So lets look at how God has given us His word to help us in this process in 2 Timothy 3:16,17:<\/p>\n

I. It Is Trustworthy<\/strong>
\nToo often when we try and help someone and tell them what they should do, the response is, \u201cThat is your opinion and maybe good for you but this is my life and I have to decide what it good for me.\u201d Even when we share the Word of God with someone the response often is the same. We hear things like, \u201cthat is just an outdated book that doesn\u2019t apply to my life.\u201d or \u201cThe Bible is full of errors so how can you say I should do what it says?\u201d Here in 2 Timothy 3:16 Paul starts out by clarifying that \u201cAll\u201d scripture is inspired by God. The idea is that it is the very breath of God or God\u2019s actual words. Since we know that God is perfect and makes no mistakes, then His word, that is inspired by Him, is also perfect and without mistakes. That means that it can be trusted over anything else in this life. While some might try and use psychology or self help books, the Bible is the only true and trustworthy source for helping others.<\/p>\n

II. It Is Powerful<\/strong>
\nNot only is the Bible trustworthy but it is also powerful to accomplish it\u2019s work. In Hebrews we read that the Bible is a living book and powerful to penetrate to the deepest, darkest places of our lives. In verse 16 we can see several things that it can accomplish in our lives.<\/p>\n

Doctrine:<\/span>
\nThe classic phrase that you hear today is that doctrine is not important, that it isn\u2019t relevant to our lives. I am here to say that is the farthest thing from the truth. In reality everything we do is based on our doctrine. What we believe determines how we act and react. This can be seen in everything from our concept of who God is to who we are in Christ. For example, when discipling someone you might come across a person that has a serious problem with anger. It might not be easily recognized at first because it will always be disguised as the other person\u2019s problem. This type of person is always critical of others and nothing is ever good enough. Some people might even disguise this as being a perfectionist. The problem is, when you confront them about their anger they will often say something like, \u201cThat is just the way I am\u201d or \u201cThat is the way everyone in my family is, I am just an angry person\u201d. This is where we see the importance of what we believe and understanding who we truly are in Christ.<\/p>\n

Reproof:<\/span>
\nWhen the Bible speaks of reproof, the idea is that of showing us how what we believe is incorrect. It doesn\u2019t do us a lot of good knowing the truth if we do not see our error or where we are wrong. So In showing us the truth and what we should believe it also reproves us when our belief doesn\u2019t line up with scripture. In our example, the person that we are discipling states that they are just an angry person. Well the truth that we see in the Word of God is that if we are born again, we are a new creature and all old things have passed away. So when we say that we are just an angry person, that is not true because we are not defined by our sin. So the Word of God not only shows me the truth but also reveals my incorrect thinking or belief that is behind my incorrect behavior.<\/p>\n

Correction:<\/span>
\nNot only is the Bible profitable for Doctrine, what we believe and Reproof, showing us how we believe incorrectly, but it also Corrects us or shows us what this truth is and what that means to our lives. It is easy sometimes to show people where they are wrong, but much more difficult to show them how they can fix it. So when someone struggles with anger we must show them this truth, that not only are they thinking and believing incorrectly when they say they are just an angry person, but there is hope, and that Christ has redeemed them of this sin. If they get angry it is because they choose to get angry not because they have to. In essence they are giving in to something that has no control over them at all, they just think it does or use it as an excuse to continue in their sin.<\/p>\n

Instruction in righteousness:<\/span>
\nThe goal in this process is to help a person not only see where they are wrong but understand what the truth is and how to apply that in their everyday lives. That is where “Instruction in righteousness” comes in. We have to help that person apply the Word of God in their lives and allow it to change them from the inside out. So, we teach the person that struggles with anger important principles like, the fact that they don\u2019t have to be angry anymore, but they can choose to react differently. We teach them that “we can do all things through Christ who gives us the strength.” We teach them to take every thought captive and form the habit of thinking before reacting and deciding to react in a Christ like way. The result is what we see in verse 17 of this passage.<\/p>\n

III. It Is Sufficient<\/strong>
\nThe person we are helping, little by little begins to grow and change into the likeness of Christ found in His word. The end result is a person that is growing and maturing on a continual basis to the point that they are \u201cperfect\u201d or mature and prepared to help others in their spiritual growth. Every sinful act or attitude that they face must be taken to the Word of God, and replaced with the correct thinking that will result in the correct behavior. So, we can see this process that is discipleship, where we take a person from \u201cDoctrine” to \u201cPractice\u201d and see the change that the Word of God accomplishes in their lives.<\/p>\n

I would like to encourage you to take these simple tools and try and begin to help someone in their spiritual growth for the Lord. I can honestly say that there is no greater joy in the ministry than seeing how the Lord can change someone\u2019s life completely. If you have any questions, or comments, please let me know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we have been focusing the last few weeks on discipleship, I would like to look a little at how we help people grow in their spiritual lives. After all, that is our goal in discipleship, to help someone grow to the point that they can in turn help others do the same. Growth is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2851,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ministry-news","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Spiritual-Growth.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1JaXV-JY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2850"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2857,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2850\/revisions\/2857"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.operationbolivia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}