We grow in holiness as we obey in faith, which requires effort.  Effort does not mean we "earn" our salvation - effort simply means we are active (not passive) participants in our own salvation journey.  He does the saving!  And we are to actively cooperate with His saving grace at work in our lives.

Growing in Christ could be compared to language learning.  Have you ever tried to learn a new language?  It takes more than lectures and books and memorization.  You can’t just learn a language - it’s got to get in you, and that requires immersion...

John chapters 14-16 are Jesus’ biography of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit’s chief attribute is holiness, and it is clear from Jesus that He wants His Holy Spirit to live with us and dwell in the hearts and lives of His disciples.  And that includes us.

God’s expectation of us as followers of Jesus is that we would be holy.  However, only God alone is holy, and we are incapable of holiness on our own. How then does God work in us and with us to make us holy in Him?  

Everyone on planet earth needs a mentor, coaching them along toward their next stage of growth or maturity.  Even professional athletes have trainers and coaches, helping the best in the world get better!  This applies to Christian discipleship as well.  No matter how old, mature, or experienced you become, you always need someone in your life challenging you to take that next step in your faith development.

I bet you’ve felt it, too.  In the midst of even the best circumstances or the worst, maybe you’ve had the sense that something fuller, deeper, stronger, more pure, more whole, more complete is out there than either the temporal junk or the wonderful euphoria we are currently experiencing.  If you’ve ever felt that way, you’re right.

Knowing who Jesus is, who He is not, and why that distinction matters helps us understand what it means for us to follow Him and to be His disciples.

In Mark chapter 8, Jesus reveals to His disciples for the first time that He, as Messiah, would have to suffer and die. But this did not fit into their boxes of who Jesus was supposed to be and what He was supposed to accomplish as Messiah. Jesus then leverages this crucial moment to clarify for His disciples how they had been thinking wrongly about Him, and why that matters so much.

Jesus is interested in who you say that He is.  Not just your parents, or your church, or your denomination, or your friends, or your co-workers.  YOU.  Who do you say that He is? 

The people of Jesus’ day had all kinds of opinions as to who Jesus was, and the people of our day have all kinds of opinions as to who Jesus is.  But the question He poses to each of us is, "Who do YOU say that I am?"