My True Age

TULIP(s)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).