three stage Christianity – Just as a natural baby must grow through stages to enter maturity, so it is with the Christian who has just been born into the kingdom of God. He must go through three stages to fulfill God’s destiny for his life: the new birth, the knowledge of the head, and the knowledge of the heart. Most Christians never make it to the third stage because they are stuck in the first or second stage of the road to maturity. You want to do everything you can to get past the first and second stages to enter the third stage.
Why do you want to do everything possible to get out of the first and second stages to enter the third stage? Because the third stage is where the real fun begins. That is where you begin to walk into a realm of glory, virtue, faith, and power that people only dream of. That is where you bear the most spiritual fruit for the kingdom of God. Where you get more people saved, healed and discipled than you ever imagined. That is where peace, joy and God’s love flow through you like a river to minister hope and life to people. That’s where God’s grace abounds toward you to do things you could never do on your own. That is where you fulfill the destiny that God has for you. That is where you grow into the fullness of Christ, the ultimate Christian goal. So let’s take a closer look at these three stages to understand how to move from Christian childhood to Christian maturity.
Stage One – The New Birth
When someone first becomes a Christian, their understanding of what God expects of them is based on the knowledge they have. Your knowledge is probably limited to the elementary requirements of a Christian: stop sinning, go to church, be baptized in water, read the Bible, and pray. These are the basics that help lay the foundation for moving to the next stage, head knowledge.
Stage Two: Head Knowledge
As a Christian spends time reading his Bible and listening to the messages given by his local church pastor and other ministers, he begins to gain more knowledge of who God is and what Christianity is all about. The amount and quality of his Biblical knowledge will depend on how long he reads and studies God’s Word and how much knowledge he obtains from his pastor and other sources.
Some scriptures tell you the things you can do through Christ, such as praying to the Father in Jesus’ name, healing the sick, cleansing lepers, casting out demons, and raising the dead. Some scriptures tell him what he has inherited from Heavenly Father from him through Christ, things like power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing. You might also learn that you have been redeemed from the curse of the law that frees you from sickness, poverty, fear, lack, the second death (lake of fire), and a host of other curses listed in Deuteronomy 28:15- 68. .
All this knowledge is good, but it is head knowledge, not heart knowledge. There is no faith in head knowledge because faith is from the heart (spirit of man) as it is written in Romans 10:10, “For with the heart (spirit of man) one believes unto righteousness, but with the mouth one confesses unto salvation.” “. .” We are not talking here about the physical heart that pumps blood through your body. No, we are talking about your spiritual man, the inner man. That is, the same thing, the heart of man and the spirit of man are interchangeable.
So we see that head knowledge does not give a Christian the faith to heal the sick, cleanse lepers, or raise the dead. Head knowledge will not rid you of want, sickness and disease. Head knowledge alone will not allow you to walk in God’s love, joy, and victory in every situation. Head knowledge will not give you victory over sin. Head knowledge will not give you supernatural wisdom and knowledge to solve impossible problems. Head knowledge will not cause God’s supernatural financial blessings to flow into his life so that he can be blessed and be a blessing to others. Head knowledge will not make him fulfill God’s glorious destiny for his life.
Because head knowledge (mental assent) alone will not do the job, this is why Christians continue to have problems with their flesh, their sinful nature, and why they can live frustrated and defeated lives because their minds have not been renewed with the will of God. The Word and the Word of God have not fallen into their hearts and come true for them. They continue to live far below their divine potential, prisoners of the desires of the flesh and devoid of God’s provision for a victorious life that only comes through the knowledge of the heart. Heart knowledge is what creates God’s kind of faith to overcome the world.
Sadly, most churches are full of first and second stage Christians unable to walk in the faith, power, and strength of God’s liberating promises, never growing into the fullness of Christ. Never become manifest children of God to advance the kingdom of God. Why are Christians stuck in the first and second stages of spiritual development, never to move on to the third stage? They have simply never been taught how to enter the third stage or if they have been, they have lacked the zeal to go on. Assuming you want to please and obey God in order to move forward and fulfill your divine destiny, let me explain below how to make God’s promises fall from your head into your heart so that you can move on to the third stage, where Christian maturity is a continuous process of going from glory to glory.
Stage three: knowledge of the heart
Jesus said in John 8:36, “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” He said in John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” So how do you get the truth, the Word of God, to fall into his heart and set him free to begin walking in the power and strength of God’s liberating promises that will lead him to fulfill God’s destiny for humanity? his life? Just reading the Word of God is not enough. You must memorize and meditate on the Word of God until you receive the knowledge of the revelation of the Word of God, specifically the promises that pertain to you as a son or daughter of God. These promises help mold you into the image of Christ so that you can live the abundant, overcoming life that pleases God.
First, start memorizing scriptures that tell you how great your God is, who you are as a child of God, who you are in Christ, and what your inheritance is in Christ. Then you must spend time meditating on these scriptures so that they become a reality for you, so that they become rhema to your heart. Rhema is a Greek word that refers to a spoken word and means “an expression.” An “expression” is when the Holy Spirit illuminates a scripture in your heart producing faith so that you believe that the scripture is now true of you. The illumination, the revelation of God’s powerful promises is what sets you free. Meditation on the Word of God is what God told Joshua to do so that the Word of God would pass from his head to his heart, so that it would become a reality for him: “This book of faith shall never depart from your mouth.” law, but you shall meditate on it.” day and night, so that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and everything will work out for you” (Joshua 1:8).
So what is meditation on the Word of God? Meditation on God’s Word as defined in Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary is murmuring, pondering, imagining, meditating, speaking, studying, speaking, and uttering God’s Word. God’s Word no longer becomes words on a page, but a reality in your heart and his Word becomes part of you. Then 2 Peter 1:4 will begin to manifest in your life as you assume God’s divine nature: “By which are given unto us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having fled from the corruption that is in the world through concupiscence.”
Memorization, meditation, and revelation of God’s Word allow you to move from the second stage of head knowledge to the third and final stage, heart knowledge that produces Christian maturity. Christian maturity is an ongoing process, its goal being to grow into the fullness of Christ and fulfill his destiny that advances the kingdom of God. The more time you spend meditating on God’s Word, resulting in revealed knowledge of His Word, will determine the speed of your spiritual growth.
In addition to memorizing, meditating, and revealing God’s Word, there are other important things God wants you to do to please Him and accelerate your spiritual growth: be baptized in the power of the Holy Spirit, fire, and God’s love, pray daily in tongues as written in Acts 2:4 and Romans 8:26-27, daily time alone with God to hear His instructions for your day, daily prayer for yourself, others, and those in authority, worshiping God daily in spirit and in truth, living a life of generosity while sowing your finances for divine harvests guided by the Holy Spirit, sharing the Gospel with the lost, and fellowshipping with other believers as commanded in Hebrews 10:25, living a holy life free from sin and, of course, always walking in love and forgiveness. others like God forgave you.
Romans 14:10b says, “For we (Christians) will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.” That being said, we should always be on Heavenly Father’s business so that when we stand before Jesus Christ we don’t lose rewards, but receive rewards. May the grace and peace of God be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. May your desire to know, love and obey God increase mightily each day.