Today, we will talk about emotional transformation and how can we experience spiritual growth. The most important task we have as human beings is to learn how to love God and our neighbors. There is nothing more important in this world than learning how to love.
We have been studying how the People of Israel. That generation that left Egypt, died in the desert, and only two men entered the Promised Land: Joshua and Caleb. This was because they did not allow God’s power to change their lives. And more specifically, they did not experience an emotional transformation.
We have already studied the different stages a person can be in emotionally. And today I want to continue with that topic. I want to start with the following approach: it is impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. It is impossible. As I grow spiritually, I must grow emotionally. The Spirit that produces spiritual growth is the same Spirit that produces an emotional transformation.
The spiritual growth of Jesus’ disciples
Let’s study the life of Jesus’ disciples. He was with them for three years and if we analyze their lives, especially that of Peter, who was called the “Son of thunder,” they had problems with their emotional growth. They did not know how to express their emotions, despite being close to Jesus.
And I am talking to you, the leader, father of the family, who goes to church every Saturday, believes in God, and has experienced conversion. You may feel that you have experienced spiritual growth while not having it since it must be proportional to your emotional growth.
You cannot be in the church, praying, singing, praising the name of the Lord on Saturday mornings and then cursing with your lips, using your tongue to criticize and censor, and not knowing how to control your emotions in the afternoon because, then, where is the Spirit of God? The Spirit that helps you have a heart full of love for God is the same Spirit that helps you have a heart full of love for your neighbor. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another” (John 13:34).
The process of the spiritual growth of Jesus’ disciples
Moments before His crucifixion, when Jesus was with His disciples in the garden of Gethsemane, and He was captured, Peter took his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. This shows that Peter did not know how to manage his emotions, he had not grown emotionally.
Maybe that could be your case and that is your struggle. You are trying, you go to church, pray, you ask the Lord to help you change because your wife or husband tells you that the way you speak to her/him is not proper, you do not have a good relationship with your children, and you feel that your family is not healthy because you have not discovered this aspect that is so important in the life of every human being.
How I grow spiritually must be the same as how I grow emotionally. How I grow spiritually must be the same as how the Bible says in Ephesians 4:13-17: “until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
That is Paul telling the church of Ephesus: We need to reach maturity, a stature; Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.
Our spiritual growth according to the Bible
That is, there was a stage in your life where you behaved like a child, spiritually and emotionally speaking, but you are expected to mature, to grow, to develop that mind of Christ that leads you to reflect the image of God in your relationships.
The verse culminates by saying that we grow by following the truth with love. Here is the word “grow” again. Let us grow spiritually and emotionally, in everything, towards the One who is the head, Christ. In verse 16, we find: “From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” God expects us to grow, to mature. And what does mature mean? Complete, whole, perfect, well-developed.
In 1 Corinthians 13:11, Paul, speaking about the excellence of love, says:
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought and reasoned as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Here is one of the problems we might be having. We are in the church and have been participating in Communion for years, praising the Lord, and going to church with our family. But we continue behaving like children, fighting.
We continue with the same unhealthy customs and habits we had when we lived outside God’s Kingdom. And Paul tells us: “there was a time in your life when you were a child, but when you meet Jesus Christ, when the Spirit of God takes control of your mind, growth and changes are expected, also that you reach Jesus’ stature, that you be transformed.”
Our spiritual transformation
That transformation that the Spirit comes to do in your mind is spiritual and emotional. Where He renews it, helps you think, handles your mind, and makes it like that of Jesus Christ. Where the Spirit of God is, hate, resentment, and negative emotions that lead you to sin and to destroy the lives of others by your side cannot exist.
Galatians 5: 22-23 tells us about the fruits of the Spirit you receive. When that Spirit comes to make the spiritual and emotional transformation in your life. Remember that these fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, meekness, temperance, and self-control. That is, the control you need to reflect the emotional intelligence that God has given you is a part of the fruits of the Spirit.
If you are struggling in your life with a mind that has not been transformed; with emotions that you have not been able to control. If you feel that you do not have healthy relationships with your husband or wife, your children, or your community; it is time for you to stop and ask the Lord: Transform me, transform my mind. I want to have self-control.
It is time for you to invite Him to come and do special work in your heart. May God bless you. May these lines help you grow and help you stop acting like a child (emotionally speaking). And begin to reach maturity in Jesus Christ.
