God wants you to grow in your faith and come into a place of dynamic, passionate, spiritual maturity. However, he knows that maturity does not come through your own efforts; only God can transform your heart in every area and give you the growth you need.
“But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, ‘I follow Paul,’ and another, ‘I follow Apollos,’ are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Corinthians 3:1-6).
Paul is telling the truth when he says that God gives the growth — but if you are not growing in a certain area, is it God’s fault? No, God is not to blame! Perhaps you are resisting the work God is doing in your life. In this letter to the Corinthian church, Paul is saying that jealousy and strife are the culprits causing the church to remain babies instead of maturing. In other words, he is talking to carnal Christians. They have invited Jesus to come into their lives but they have not let him be Lord of their lives.
When you receive Jesus as your Savior and Lord, your life will be affected — you will become a different kind of person. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Even what does not look new has become new because he is in the process of cleansing, changing and transforming you!