Salt and Light: Growing Into Spiritual Capability
By Brent Davis, Campus Ministry Coordinator and AUHS staff
A mature person is a capable person. So, what does it take to become spiritually mature—what capabilities do we need?
Christians often answer this question by talking about what we should believe or what we should do. We read Scripture, pray, worship, serve, fellowship with other believers, and seek to obey God. All of these are essential. Yet Scripture also describes Christian growth as something deeper: God is forming us into people who are increasingly able to live faithfully and lovingly in all the circumstances of life.
Second Peter provides a helpful picture of this kind of growth:
“Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity” (2 Peter 1:5–7, KJV).
Peter begins by reminding believers that God has already provided what we need: “His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3, KJV). Christian formation therefore begins with grace, God’s unmerited provision for our needs. God provides the resources. The question then becomes: how do those resources increasingly become part of the way we actually live?
From Spiritual Resources to Spiritual Capabilities
The economist and philosopher Amartya Sen uses the term capability to describe a person’s real ability or opportunity to do and become something valuable. The distinction can also help us think about spiritual formation.
A Bible is a resource. Christian teaching is a resource. A church community is a resource. Prayer, worship, mentoring, and fellowship all provide resources for spiritual growth. Most importantly, Christians have the presence and work of the Holy Spirit.
But possessing a resource is not quite the same thing as having developed the capability to use it faithfully.
A person may know that forgiveness is commanded yet still struggle to forgive when deeply hurt. Someone may understand that God is trustworthy but find it difficult to trust Him during trials. We may know that we should love our neighbor while still needing to develop the patience, courage, wisdom, and self-control required to love a difficult person well.
Spiritual maturity involves the gradual conversion of the resources God provides into genuine capacities for faithful living, a pathway delineated in 2 Peter.
Peter describes some of these capacities: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. They are not merely ideas to understand. They are qualities that increasingly enable us to respond like Christ, “attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4: 13b, NIV).
How Does God Form These Capabilities?
God does not ordinarily form mature Christians by simply giving us information.
He places us within a rich ecology of formation. Scripture teaches us. Prayer turns our attention toward God. Worship reorients our desires. Christian community gives us people to imitate, encourage us, correct us, forgive, and love. Trials exercise perseverance. Service develops compassion. Repeated obedience forms habits. The Holy Spirit works through all of these to transform us and yield the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5: 22).
This helps explain why the New Testament gives so much attention to the church as a community. Paul writes that Christ gives leaders to equip His people until “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man” and attain “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13, KJV).
The goal is maturity in Christ, and God uses people, practices, relationships, and institutions (patterns of doing things) to help us reach it.
A healthy Christian community therefore does more than provide religious activities. It creates an environment in which people can learn to trust, worship, forgive, discern, persevere, serve, and love.
Becoming What We Behold
One especially important practice is beholding.
Scripture repeatedly directs our attention toward God—His character, His works, His promises, and above all Jesus Christ. Paul writes that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we “are changed into the same image from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18, KJV).
What repeatedly holds our attention begins to shape what we value. What we value shapes what we desire. What we desire influences how we act. Repeated actions gradually become characteristic ways of living.
Christian practices such as Scripture reading, worship, prayer, communion, testimony, and fellowship can therefore be understood partly as ways the church helps us repeatedly turn our attention toward Christ.
We behold Christ so that, through the Holy Spirit, we increasingly become like the One we behold.
Spiritual Maturity Is for Love
Peter’s list reaches its culmination in love.
This is significant. Spiritual capability is not primarily about becoming more impressive, knowledgeable, disciplined, or religious. The mature Christian becomes increasingly capable of loving God and loving others. See 1 Timothy 1: 5: The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.
We might describe the process this way: God gives love and grace. We receive that love, learn to live from our identity in Christ, redirect our desires through repentance (a change of direction), train those desires through spiritual disciplines, and develop stable virtues. Community circulates that love, institutions help structure it, and mission extends it to others. Flourishing is its fruit which gives glory to God and allows us to enjoy Him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism).
Eventually, mature believers themselves become resources for the formation of others. Someone who has learned patience can help another person persevere. Someone who has experienced God’s forgiveness can become a forgiving presence. Someone who has learned to listen can make another person feel heard. Someone who has learned to trust God can strengthen another person during fear.
Formation thus becomes a living cycle: God gives; His people receive; through the Spirit they are transformed; and transformed people become instruments through whom God blesses others.
A Question for Reflection
Perhaps one way to examine our spiritual lives is not simply to ask, What do I know? or even What Christian activities am I doing?
We might also ask:
What am I becoming increasingly able to do because Christ is forming me?
Am I becoming more able to love when love is difficult? More able to remain faithful when circumstances are uncertain? More able to discern what is good? More able to control my impulses, persevere through suffering, care for another person, forgive an offense, or bring peace into conflict?
Peter assures us that God has already supplied what we need for life and godliness. Our calling is to participate diligently in the work He is doing within us.
The goal is not simply to possess spiritual resources.
It is to become mature people who, by the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, are increasingly capable of living like Christ—and helping others flourish in His love to His glory.
