1 Corinthians 3:1-9 Arrested Development

1 Corinthians 3:1-9  Arrested Development

I am sure you have people before who have gotten stuck in life. They have not matured enough to take care of themselves. They are stuck in elementary or high school. College students who keep switching majors, eight years and 5 majors and no degree, no job. It’s called arrested development. It can happen anywhere in life.

I was sitting by a stream watching the water flow when a leaf caught my eye. It circled endlessly in a circle, stuck in an eddy. The leaf will not continue downstream until the wind or some other force breaks the eddy’s spell. That is arrested development. Arrested development can happen physically, emotionally, even spiritually. This is the problem for the Corinthian church. They are still not ready for solid spiritual food. How does Paul know this? Their strife over who they follow. They argue over who has the best spiritual gifts and which one is truly spiritual, all the while the real work of God is left undone.

The rip current. I find myself struggling, more willing to try and fight my way to the beach. I am so sure of where we should go that I find myself fighting with people. God say Rick you have to do better. If I have been fighting with you please forgive me, I should and will work to do better. Perhaps you find yourself in the same place.

Arrested development can happen anywhere in our spiritual growth. It shows not only in strife but it shows in other ways. It can be seen in a boring prayer life, a lack of desire for God’s Word, a desire not to be in fellowship with others, or not finding a purpose in ministry using your spiritual gifts. These are all signs that we have gotten stuck in a spiritual eddy. The number one sign you are stuck is a lack of fruit, you stop being part of the harvest.

Whole churches can get caught in spiritual eddies like the Corinthian church did. There are whole churches that have failed to bring even one person to saving faith in Jesus, in years. They have a beautiful building, good music, prayer meetings, Bible studies about everything, even alter calls at every service, and still have yet to win a soul.

While at college I was sitting next to a table of students who were planning to go to the Wednesday night concert at a large local church. The church would close the doors and not open them until someone got saved. These students were trying to decide who’s turn it was to go forward at the alter call so the rest could go home.

You may have seen fields of corn where the farmer will take the combine and harvest the outside edge of the field to make shooting lanes for deer hunting. One farmer I know does this and then forgets to actually harvesting the field. We used to tease him about hauling the planter behind his combine.

Some churches settle on the edge of the field and leave the bulk of the field untouched. Like the farmer who is so busy deer hunting that he has forgotten to harvest his field.

What to do about this?

1.       Ask God to show you if you are spiritually stuck

2.       Periodically evaluate your growth as a Christian

3.       Accept responsibility for where you are at

4.       Make a plan on how to change, and implement it.

God wants and has so much more for us. There are whole fields to be harvested. There’s no greater feeling than being part of the harvesters. The Bible says “Work out your own salvation”, that means to make a plan and a commitment to growth in your spiritual life. Will you make that commitment to God today, to do better, to be better.