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Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We are in day three of our look through
chapter two, verses 12 to 14 today. These are amongst my favorite verses in 1
John.

I just love the picture that these verses give us of personal growth. Let me
read the verses for you and then we'll walk through them together today. First
John 2, 12 to 14.

I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account
of His name. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the
beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one.

I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to
you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to
you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God lives in you and you
have overcome the evil one.

It's not too difficult to see that John talks to children and young men and
fathers in these verses. These aren't verses about family though, they're not
even verses about gender, they're really verses about growth. He's talking in
these verses about spiritual growth and the stages of growth that we all go
through, men and women alike.

Every church has these three things, children, the young, the young men, and the
fathers in the faith. You've got brand new believers, the children. You've got
the young men, those who are choosing, just beginning to live out this life of
Christ.

And then you have believers who have a long legacy of faith, children, young
men, fathers. This is not about physical age, this is about spiritual age. I
think we all know people who are older physically, but they're still spiritually
very immature.

And we know people who are younger physically, but they're wise with a deep
maturity way beyond their years. What we're talking about here is the spiritual
growth that God wants to work into your life. As you look through these verses
and it talks about growth, they're a reminder of three very important truths
about spiritual growth that I just want to touch on before we get to what it
means to be a child or a young man or a father in the faith, the different
stages of growth.

The three important truths are these. Growth is not automatic, growth takes time
plus trust, and growth changes me. First growth is not automatic.

I just said we know people who are older, but they're still spiritually
immature. How can that happen? Why don't I just automatically grow the longer I
have a life of faith?

Well, it's not automatic. There are choices that God has me make. He's working
to grow you right now, no doubt about it.

But there are choices that he has you make about habits in your life, about
relationships in your life, about his word in your life, about worship in your
life, about serving in your life. There are choices he has you make that cause
you to grow. And if I refuse to make those choices, then I'm not going to grow.

Growth second truth is it takes time plus trust. Even if I make all the right
choices, and no one does, none of us are perfect, but even if I make almost all
the right choices, it's still going to take time to grow spiritually. It takes
time to get to know his word.

It takes time to develop the skill of how do I relate to others, even how do I
talk to God, how do I pray. It takes time. In fact, in an amazing way, the Bible
tells us that patience with our problems is one of the main factors in our
growth as believers.

It takes time plus trust. Time alone isn't enough. It takes time plus trust,
trusting God as he is patiently working in me.

If you want to be full grown spiritually, and you're giving God maybe a month to
get it done, or maybe even a year to get it done, forget it, it doesn't work
that way. It takes time plus trust. It's a lifetime of growth.

That's what I love about the Christian life. It is the challenge of a lifetime
of growth. But let me remind you of the third truth about spiritual growth.

Growth changes me. God wants to change you. Not just when you get to heaven, but
even on this earth, he wants to grow you and change you.

The truth is, you are the sum total of your commitments. And by making new
commitments in your life to Christ and to God and the things that he says are
important, you will change. The truth is, you are known by your daily habits.

That's what you're known for. You might want to be known for something else, but
you're known by what you do every day, how you talk every day, what's important
to you every day. And as you grow in Jesus Christ, your daily habits change, and
you're known as a different person.

Your character is known in a different way. Growth changes me. In fact, that's
what John is talking about in these verses, verses 12 to 14.

Getting back to these three groups that John is encouraging here, what he's
saying is, you need Christ at all three stages. You need Christ when you're
beginning. You need Christ when you're feeling strong, and you need Christ when
you're mature in the faith.

Now that may sound obvious, I need Christ if I'm going to grow in Christ, but
it's so easy to miss the obvious in this one. It's so easy to get to the point
where you think, oh, yeah, I needed Jesus at the beginning, but I'll take it
from here. I got some verses under my belt.

I'm doing pretty well. I'm not a child anymore in the faith. I'm strong in the
faith.

So I'll take it on my strength from now on. And then you fall flat on your face
spiritually. I've seen it happen in my life.

I've seen it happen in every believer's life. It's just what happens when we
depend on ourselves. You see, I need Christ at every stage.

And in these verses, John talks about the qualities that I want to make sure not
to miss at each stage of growth. This is important for you at these stages, and
this is important also as you help others as they walk through these stages. For
instance, he says, dear children, the new believer, what does he want to make
sure the new believer doesn't miss?

Two things. Number one, don't miss that you're forgiven. If you're going to live
out the life of Christ, know that you're forgiven.

Hang on to the fact that you're forgiven. When Satan comes and tempts you and
says to you, oh, he didn't really forgive you. Just based on a prayer, you could
be forgiven.

When you're tempted with those thoughts, remember the cross is real. It is a
prayer. It is a prayer that recognizes the reality that Jesus died for you.

You are forgiven. And he also says, you're known. You know and are known by your
father.

Recognize that relationship that you have with him. And in that relationship
that you have with him and the forgiveness that he has given you, Jesus Christ
builds the foundation for a lifetime of growth. How about the growing believer?

He says, here's some things you need to recognize, three of them. Recognize that
you are strong, that the word of God lives in you, and that you've overcome the
evil one. Now, the evil one's going to tempt you to believe none of those things
are true.

He's going to tempt you to believe that you can't make it in the Christian life.
Strong here isn't a prideful word. It doesn't mean you're pridefully strong.

It means that God has put strength into your life and you want to praise him for
it, give him thanks for it, grow on it. Recognize also that the word of God
lives in you. That's where spiritual strength comes from, from God's word.

It doesn't come from our philosophies. That's empty. It comes from God's word.

And recognize also, he says, that you have overcome the evil one. Satan wants us
to be scared of him. He wants us to be scared of evil.

God tells us that you don't have to be scared of evil. The one who is in you is
greater than the evil one and you have overcome the evil one. Yeah, we're going
to lose some battles in this world, but the end of the story is we are
victorious in Jesus Christ.

We have overcome the evil one, not by our power, not by our might, but by God's
power, by what Jesus did on the cross. Recognize that. That's where the strength
to live out a growing life as a believer comes from.

And then he talks to the mature believer and he says, here's what I want you to
remember. Remember that you know him who has been from the very beginning. For
the mature believer, John goes all the way back to the very beginning and says,
remember the eternal God, the eternity of God.

From the beginning and all the way to the end of time, from eternity to
eternity, God has loved you. If you're mature as a believer, remember the most
important thing about you is the fact that God loves you. However God used you.

He may have used you to do some great things. However deep your life has come in
him, you may have understood some great truths. However many verses of the Bible
you've memorized, keep remembering that the most important thing about you is
that God loves you.

From the beginning of time, an eternity before you were born, God loves you,
until an eternity after you have died on this planet and when you're in heaven
with him for eternity, God will love you. The most lasting thing about you, by
far, is God's love for you. Little children, young men, mature growing fathers,
believers.

Another way to look at these verses is not just in stages of time, but also
stages in my own life, that all of us at times are like this. Even when I become
a mature believer, sometimes I still act like a child in the faith every once in
a while. You know what I'm talking about.

So we all need to remember these things. All Christians are like little
children, forgiven, dependent on the Father. All Christians can be like young
men, strong and victorious in the faith, young women.

And all are meant to be like fathers in the faith, with eternity in mind. In
fact, as we close in prayer today, I want to focus on those three things.
Father, thank you that we are forgiven in Jesus Christ.

Help us to never outgrow, outthink, forget the truth of forgiveness. And Father,
thank you that we are strong and victorious in Jesus Christ. Help us to never
depend on our own power to depend on your power.

Help us to never minimize your power, but to recognize that in what Jesus has
done and what Jesus is doing, we are strong and victorious in faith. And Lord,
help us to recognize eternity. Right now, to put into our minds the eternity of
your love for us, that there's nothing more lasting about us than your love for
us.

Thank you for the assurance of a relationship with the eternal God. In your
name, Jesus, we pray, amen. Join us tomorrow.

We're going to take a look at verses 15 to 17, which include an understanding of
the temptations in our life that can pull us down and God's answer to those
temptations.