Imperishable Inheritance

One more year added to the crazy number that is my age. Upon times of chang­ing age, it is impor­tant to ask: how old am I truly? Am I truly 22? Maybe 33 or 15? The truth is that I am coming up on my first birthday.

The Bible speaks very much that regen­er­a­tion brings forth life from death (John 5:24; Romans 5:12-17, 8:6; Eph­esians 2:1; 1 John 3:14). These verses speak in the time sense of the cur­rent change brought inward by the work of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we escape death through Christ (Proverbs 11:19, 12:28; Romans 6:23; 2 Tim­o­thy 1:10; Rev­e­la­tion 2:10); but I am refer­ring to the act in our mortal lives. We do escape death by two means expressed: (1) we pass from spir­i­tual death into spir­i­tual life through regeneration/faith (2) we escape eter­nal death (hell) and obtain the inher­i­tance of eter­nal life (heaven).

Now that is dis­tin­guished, I am refer­ring to the first. Through this the obser­va­tion must be made that until I was regen­er­ated, I did not age; because I truly was dead (spir­i­tual, yet dead still in God’s eter­nal eyes). So, I am not even a year old!

Why Does This Matter?

We think of our earthly age as a symbol of wisdom, youth, being old, naive, expe­ri­ence, inex­pe­ri­ence, or many other pro­nouns. But truly our earthly age means noth­ing. The only age that mat­ters is that of our spir­i­tual age, because that is how the Cre­ator sees us.

I can par­al­lel our spir­i­tual to age to that we think of in an earthly sense. For instance, I am coming up on a year; and I am dis­play­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of a one-year-old (in an earthly sense). I am con­ceited, the only thing I see is my world, and every­thing is so new I want to explore and am amazed by every­thing. Fur­ther­more, I don’t mind to say what’s on my mind with­out regard to others (sounds like a one-year-old).

Causal Chains of Growth

I have found a few causal chains indica­tive of spir­i­tual (and true) aging.

Now for this very reason also, apply­ing all dili­gence, in your faith supply moral excel­lence, and in your moral excel­lence, knowl­edge, and in your knowl­edge, self-​control, and in your self-​control, per­se­ver­ance, and in your per­se­ver­ance, god­li­ness, and in your god­li­ness, broth­erly kind­ness, and in your broth­erly kind­ness, love. For if these qual­i­ties are yours and are increas­ing, they render you nei­ther use­less nor unfruit­ful in the true knowl­edge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qual­i­ties is blind or short-​sighted, having for­got­ten his purifi­ca­tion from his former sins.
2 Peter 1:5-9

None of the attrib­utes the apos­tle men­tion come auto­mat­i­cally upon regen­er­a­tion (if so, I’m doing some­thing wrong). Grow­ing in faith pro­vides the abil­ity for moral excel­lence to knowl­edge to self-​control to per­se­ver­ance to god­li­ness to broth­erly kind­ness to love. It’s amaz­ing that love is the final, apex attribute men­tioned in the chain.

And not only this [Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion], but we also exult in our tribu­la­tions, know­ing that tribu­la­tion brings about per­se­ver­ance; and per­se­ver­ance, proven char­ac­ter; and proven char­ac­ter, hope; and hope does not dis­ap­point, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Romans 5:3-5 (empha­sis added)

Paul men­tions the impor­tance of tribu­la­tion to per­se­ver­ance to proven char­ac­ter to hope (and love is asso­ci­ated with that hope).

Growth Through Perseverance

Here are a few verses that exem­plify how per­se­ver­ance (usu­ally through trial/tribulation) aid in our growth.

“But the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with per­se­ver­ance.
Luke 8:15

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brethren, as is only fit­ting, because your faith is greatly enlarged, and the love of each one of you toward one another grows ever greater; there­fore, we our­selves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your per­se­ver­ance and faith in the midst of all your per­se­cu­tions and afflic­tions which you endure.
2 Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 1:3-4

And let endurance have its per­fect result, so that you may be per­fect and com­plete, lack­ing in noth­ing.
James 1:4

Friends, the per­se­ver­ance the Bible talks about is not some­thing that hap­pens imme­di­ately. We often get dis­tressed by our lack of growth at times (as I can attest too per­son­ally), but that is not some­thing that we have to con­cern our­selves with. Titus 2 actu­ally speaks of the older (men and women) aiding the younger and all in ref­er­ences to the saints.

My True Age

I am not 22—I’m only work­ing on my first year! May I con­tinue to grow in age, wisdom, and per­se­vere in antic­i­pa­tion the inher­i­tance promised (and reserved) to me (1 Peter 1:3-5).