Feed the Need to Grow Together

Here are some questions from the Life Group lesson on August 22, 2010. These can be found, along with a more in depth description, on the CFBC website.

Scripture: 1 Peter 1:22-2:3
Purpose: To understand two important things about spiritual growth: 1) personal transformation takes place best within a genuine community of believers; and 2) we grow together when we make the choice to respond to God's Word and embrace personal change.

How could surrounding yourself with believers who desire to grow spiritually help you grow? What is the value of striving to build community with believers? 

How would you describe what happens when we respond to the truth from God's Word?

What can be challenging about responding to the truth from God's Word and incorporating it into life?

In essence, it can be summed up in that when we truly respond to the truth of God's Word as a norm, this act of one-day-at-a-time obedience changes everything about us over time. Who we are becoming changes along with a greater capacity to love one another. We will become more like Christ and thus love more like Christ when we not only learn and understand the truth from God's Word, but adjust our lives to the truth in some form.

What sort of environment in a community of believers would discourage destructive traits from the beginning? 

Destructive traits stem from the inside out. They usually begin with an attitude that we either refuse to acknowledge and confront or we choose to feed it and it grows into something worse and more harmful to our relationships. Sometimes the hardest part of allowing God to change our character is being honest with ourselves. But, if we will make the choice to give Christ access to all the hidden places of our inward lives He will over time transform our character.
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We are better together than we are apart as believers. Peter describes spiritual growth at its best in the context of believers forming genuine community. This is why small groups are stressed in church as being extremely important. There ar two basic things required to grow: 1) spiritual growth requires responding to God's Word (1:22-25); 2) spiritual growth requires embracing personal change (2:1-3).