RELIGIOUS GROWTH

The experience of dynamic religious living transforms the mediocre individual into a
personality of idealistic power. Religion ministers to the progress of all through fostering the
progress of each individual, and the progress of each is augmented through the achievement of
all.

Spiritual growth is mutually stimulated by intimate association with other religionists. Love
supplies the soil for religious growth—an objective lure in the place of subjective gratification—
yet it yields the supreme subjective satisfaction. And religion ennobles the commonplace
drudgery of daily living. 100:0.1

Give every developing child a chance to grow his own religious experience; do not force a
ready-made adult experience upon him. Remember, year-by-year progress through an established
educational regime does not necessarily mean intellectual progress, much less spiritual growth.
Enlargement of vocabulary does not signify development of character. Growth is not truly
indicated by mere products but rather by progress. Real educational growth is indicated by
enhancement of ideals, increased appreciation of values, new meanings of values, and
augmented loyalty to supreme values. 100:1.3

Spiritual growth is first an awakening to needs, next a discernment of meanings, and then a
discovery of values. The evidence of true spiritual development consists in the exhibition of a
human personality motivated by love, activated by unselfish ministry, and dominated by the
wholehearted worship of the perfection ideals of divinity. And this entire experience constitutes
the reality of religion as contrasted with mere theological beliefs. 100:2.2

THE BELIEVER'S SURETY

Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: 'To a God-
knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?'Temporal securities
are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity,
selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the
assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely
unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul
to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.

After such spiritual attainment, whether secured by gradual growth or specific crisis, there
occurs a new orientation of personality as well as the development of a new standard of values.
Such spirit-born individuals are so remotivated in life that they can calmly stand by while their
fondest ambitions perish and their keenest hopes crash; they positively know that such
catastrophes are but the redirecting cataclysms which wreck one's temporal creations preliminary
to the rearing of the more noble and enduring realities of a new and more sublime level of
universe attainment. 100:2.7