When it comes to accepting the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, people come to Him for different reasons. There are those who have a friend or loved one whose life has been transformed. They can see the difference it has made in this person’s life and decide to seek the Lord for themselves. Others may come up against troublesome situations that cause them to feel trapped and very alone. They become desperate, and as a last resort, ask the Lord for help. In Revelations 3:20(NLT), Jesus Christ said, “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends.” Even when people do not give him space in their lives when things are going well, and only call on him when things are bad, he still hears them and wants to help. He stands at the door of our hearts knocking and waiting until we let him in. He accepts our invitation, and he accepts us just the way we are, but we must understand that the condition in which he finds us will ultimately change, and so will we.

In the traditions of those living during earlier biblical periods, eating together was a big deal. Jewish culture and law were such that a person wouldn’t eat with just anyone. Eating together symbolized a very close relationship. This closeness is what God offers through Jesus Christ. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire fellowship and intimacy with us. This is what Jesus Christ is conveying when he says that he’s waiting at the door of our hearts for the invitation to come in. Sharing a meal symbolizes the friendship and closeness he offers and represents. Again, he will take us as we are; however, we must understand that the invitation includes a transformation that only he can accomplish in us. Jesus Christ will aid us to become better than we were as we progress in our relationship with Heavenly Father.

This progression comes in stages. Think about high school, which customarily takes four years to complete. We go through our freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior years; just like college. Our Christian journey will take the entire span of our lifetimes, but the stages of higher learning in high school and college paint a very similar picture for the expectation of spiritual growth and maturity. They also show us how patient God is with us as we learn our spiritual lessons well.

Freshmen is the beginning year, when we are just getting our feet wet and learning the basics. The sophomore year places a higher demand on our mental resources and more of us is required to become anchored in what we’ve learned. In our junior year, expectations are significantly higher than the freshman year. We’ve got our feet wet, and we should be able to maneuver around subjects with greater ease. As a junior, we should be able to put what we’ve learned into practical use. Lastly, in the senior year, we should be poised to transition into advanced levels of discipline and learning. This is the level where the greatest demand on what we’ve learned thus far exists, and it is also a level where we are rewarded for diligence. Our choices are the most consequential at this level.

Again, in similar fashion, we go through stages in our spiritual development. After we become born again, our freshmen reign can feel like a honeymoon stage. We’re young in God’s Word and still learning the basics of this Christian walk of faith. It is typically the stage where we draw on God’s abundant grace and mercy tremendously, because we’ve not yet learned to stand firm. However, after the honey moon is over, we should be ready to embrace sophomore or junior status. God is infinitely more gracious, patient, and accommodating than our institutional systems. He doesn’t force us to grow up, but life is designed in such a way that it doesn’t wait for us to catch up, and the devil is merciless. If we’re not spiritually ready to meet the expectations of the next stage, we’ll be overcome by the strategies of the enemy. This is usually the place where we become impatient, because we thought that being a Christian means that everything will be easy. The danger in this is that we might end up like the seeds in the parable Jesus used in Matthew 13:5. Our roots will not be firmly planted in the soil of the Gospel. We will sprout too quickly, meaning we’ll want the reward of a diploma when we’ve applied nowhere near the discipline and diligence required to earn it.

Colossians 2:6(NLT) tells us, “6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.”  This is no ordinary life that we have been called by Christ to live. We have been given the extraordinary privilege and honor to walk with our Master Jesus. Every day presents us with another opportunity to walk with the King. It requires that we are diligent in to the assignment he has given us to read and study God’s Word; to pray and communicate with Him often, and to follow the example Christ has left us to follow. If we will patiently endure in the faith of Jesus Christ, we will absolutely advance in our walk with him and move to the next level of growth and blessings.■

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.