95 – Growth vs Ascension

Don’t seek to “ascend”, but grow—not through favors or hazing, but “be ye transformed”.

We are God’s workmanship. We ourselves will be the greatest architecture in Heaven, not made in glory as the angels, but crafted, mastered, and worked into who we will have become in that day.

It’s not about “ascending” into a new location, but about growing to become. The Book of Enoch says that Remiel is over “those who rise”, and when they rise, they become stars and never fall from their places. This kind of “rising” is about much more than simply climbing a ladder or scaling a mountain; it’s about transformation from the inside out.

In the Biblical perspective, transformation from the inside comes from persistence against pressures from the outside. God must breathe on it, of course, or there won’t be any transformation at all. But, God uses difficulties, challenges, even tests that we pass or fail—either way—to mold and transform us. It works if we keep reading the Bible to download and install God’s thinking into our hearts and praying to keep our inner lives in good condition.

When Israel cried out to God in Judges about, His answer was to promise the birth of Samson. Samson would need to be born and grow up before he could help save Israel from the Philistine oppression and pagan [human] sacrifices during that occupancy. When God answers a prayer, His answer is to plant a seed that needs time to grow.

It’s wiser to pray for strength and growth before you need it, not waiting until you are hungry to plant a garden.

Likewise, growth into glory takes time. To grow into all God wants us to be, simple, inner, transformational growth must be our most frequent prayer request. Those Christians who are wise and patient and kind have prayed for wisdom, patience, and kindness in most of their prayer time. They didn’t start this morning, but they have prayed for those things for decades.

Mature status is not about being picked up or climbing up onto the top of a shelf to be displayed. It’s about being mature—growing into being—transforming through metamorphosis into glory.

Judges 13:1-7, 1 Kings 3:9-10Luke 22:40-46, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 5:17, Colossians 1:9-10, 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24, 2 Thessalonians 3:16