69 Bible Verses about Growth

till we should all attain the unity of the faith and knowledge of God's Son, reaching maturity, reaching the full measure of development which belongs to the fulness of Christ ??14 instead of remaining immature, blown from our course and swayed by every passing wind of doctrine, by the adroitness of men who are dexterous in devising error; we are to hold by the truth, and by our love to grow up wholly into Him. For He, Christ, is the head, and under him,

But I could not discuss things with you, my brothers, as spiritual persons; I had to address you as worldlings, as mere babes in Christ. I fed you with milk, not with solid food. You were not able for solid food, and you are not able even now;

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I argued like a child; now that I am a man, I am done with childish ways.

Brothers, do not be children in the sphere of intelligence; in evil be mere infants, but be mature in your intelligence.

Though by this time you should be teaching other people, you still need someone to teach you once more the rudimentary principles of the divine revelation. You are in need of milk, not of solid food. (For anyone who is fed on milk is unskilled in moral truth; he is a mere babe. Whereas solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by exercise to distinguish good and evil.)

Like newly-born children, thirst for the pure, spiritual milk to make you grow up to salvation.

As for the seed that fell among thorns, that means people who hear but who go and get choked with worries and money and the pleasures of life, so that they never ripen. As for the seed in the good soil, that means those who hear and hold fast the word in a good and sound heart and so bear fruit stedfastly.

As for him who is sown 'among thorns,' that is the man who listens to the word, but the worry of the world and the delight of being rich choke the word; so it proves unfruitful. As for him who is sown 'on good soil,' that is the man who hears the word and understands it; he bears fruit, producing now a hundredfold, now sixty, and now thirtyfold."

but the worries of the world and the delight of being rich and all the other passions come in to choke the word; so it proves unfruitful. As for those who were sown 'on good soil,' these are the people who listen to the word and take it in and bear fruit at the rate of thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold."

He who furnishes the sower with seed and with bread to eat will supply seed for you and multiply it; he will increase the crop of your charities ??11 you will be enriched on all hands, so that you can be generous on all occasions, and your generosity, of which I am the agent, will make men give thanks to God;

I am glad to be weak if you are strong; mend your ways, that is all I ask.

This is the Christ we proclaim; we train everyone and teach everyone the full scope of this knowledge, in order to set everyone before God mature in Christ;

Epaphras, who is one of yourselves, salutes you ??a servant of Christ Jesus who is always earnest in prayer for you, that you may stand firm like mature and convinced Christians, whatever be the will of God for you.

I do not boast beyond my limits in a sphere where other men have done the work; my hope rather is that the growth of your faith will allow me to enlarge the range of my appointed sphere and preach the gospel in the lands that lie beyond you, instead of boasting within another's province over work that is already done.

We are bound always to thank God for you, brothers ??it is proper that we should, because your faith grows apace and your mutual love, one and all, is increasing.

but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. To him be the glory now and to the day of eternity: Amen.

May the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, grant you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation for the knowledge of himself, illuminating the eyes of your heart so that you can understand the hope to which He calls us, the wealth of his glorious heritage in the saints,

praying Him out of the wealth of his glory to grant you a mighty increase of strength by his Spirit in the inner man. May Christ dwell in your hearts as you have faith! May you be so fixed and founded in love that you can grasp with all the saints what is the meaning of 'the Breadth,' 'the Length,' 'the Depth' and 'the Height,'read more.
by knowing the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge! May you be filled with the entire fulness of God!

so that you may lead a life that is worthy of the Lord and give him entire satisfaction. May you be fruitful and increase in the doing of all good, as you thus know God!

Inasmuch as his power divine has bestowed on us every requisite for life and piety by the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence ??4 bestowing on us thereby promises precious and supreme, that by means of them you may escape the corruption produced within the world by lust, and participate in the divine nature ??5 for this very reason, do you contrive to make it your whole concern to furnish your faith with resolution, resolution with intelligence,

as indeed is your practice towards all the brothers throughout all Macedonia. We beseech you, brothers, to excel in this more and more;

And it is my prayer that your love may be more and more rich in knowledge and all manner of insight, enabling you to have a sense of what is vital,

And may the Lord make you increase and excel in love to one another and to all men (as is my love for you),

piety with brotherliness, brotherliness with Christian love. For as these qualities exist and increase with you, they render you active and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

instead of keeping in touch with that Head under whom the entire Body, supplied with joints and sinews and thus compacted, grows with growth divine.

I did the planting, Apollos did the watering, but it was God who made the seed grow. So neither planter nor waterer counts, but God alone who makes the seed grow.

of this I am confident, that he who has begun the good work in you will go on completing it until the day of Jesus Christ.

So off with all malice, all guile and insincerity and envy and slander of every kind!

If you live by the flesh, you are on the road to death; but if by the Spirit you put the actions of the body to death, you will live. For the sons of God are those who are guided by the Spirit of God.

As these great promises are ours, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates either flesh or spirit; let us be fully consecrated by reverence for God].

Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its emotions and passions.

you must lay aside the old nature which belonged to your former course of life, that nature which crumbles to ruin under the passions of moral deceit, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, putting on the new nature, that divine pattern which has been created in the upright and pious character of the Truth.

So put to death those members that are on earth: sexual vice, impurity, appetite, evil desire, and lust (which is idolatry), things that bring down the anger of God on the sons of disobedience. Once you moved among them, when you lived in them;read more.
but off with them all now, off with anger, rage, malice, slander, foul talk! Tell no lies to one another; you have stripped off the old nature with its practices, and put on the new nature which is renewed in the likeness of its Creator for the knowledge of him.

Let us pass on then to what is mature, leaving elementary Christian doctrine behind, instead of laying the foundation over again with repentance from dead works, with faith in God, with instruction about ablutions and the laying on of hands, about the resurrection of the dead and eternal punishment.

On this point I have a great deal to say, which it is hard to make intelligible to you. For you have grown dull of hearing. Though by this time you should be teaching other people, you still need someone to teach you once more the rudimentary principles of the divine revelation. You are in need of milk, not of solid food. (For anyone who is fed on milk is unskilled in moral truth; he is a mere babe.read more.
Whereas solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by exercise to distinguish good and evil.)

Well then, my brothers, I appeal to you by all the mercy of God to dedicate your bodies as a living sacrifice, consecrated and acceptable to God; that is your cult, a spiritual rite.

only, let your endurance be a finished product, so that you may be finished and complete, with never a defect.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have been obedient always and not simply when I was present, so, now that I am absent, work all the more strenuously at your salvation with reverence and trembling,

Not that I have already attained this or am already perfect, but I press forward to appropriate it, because I have been appropriated myself by Christ Jesus.

intelligence with self-control, self-control with stedfastness, stedfastness with piety, piety with brotherliness, brotherliness with Christian love. For as these qualities exist and increase with you, they render you active and fruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ;

he granted some men to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to shepherd and teach, for the equipment of the saints, for the business of the ministry, for the upbuilding of the Body of Christ,

Make love your aim, and then set your heart on the spiritual gifts ??especially upon prophecy. For he who speaks in a 'tongue' addresses God not men; no one understands him; he is talking of divine secrets in the Spirit. On the other hand, he who prophesies addresses men in words that edify, encourage, and console them.read more.
He who speaks in a 'tongue' edifies himself, whereas he who prophesies edifies the church. Now I would like you all to speak with 'tongues,' but I would prefer you to prophesy. The man who prophesies is higher than the man who speaks with 'tongues' ??unless indeed the latter interprets, so that the church may get edification.

till we should all attain the unity of the faith and knowledge of God's Son, reaching maturity, reaching the full measure of development which belongs to the fulness of Christ ??14 instead of remaining immature, blown from our course and swayed by every passing wind of doctrine, by the adroitness of men who are dexterous in devising error; we are to hold by the truth, and by our love to grow up wholly into Him. For He, Christ, is the head, and under him, as the entire Body is welded together and compacted by every joint with which it is supplied, the due activity of each part enables the Body to grow and build itself up in love.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favour with God and man.

And the child grew, he became strong in the Spirit and remained in the desert till the day when he made his appearance before Israel.

Saul became more and more vigorous. He put the Jewish residents in Damascus to confusion by his proof that Jesus was the Christ;

which has reached you as it spreads over all the world with fruit and increase. Such has been your life from the day you learned to know what God's grace really is.

He put another parable before them. "The Realm of heaven," he said, "is like a grain of mustard-seed which a man takes and sows in his field. It is less than any seed on earth, but when it grows up it is larger than any plant, it becomes a tree, so large that the wild birds come and roost in its branches." He told them another parable. "The Realm of heaven," he said, "is like dough which a woman took and buried in three pecks of flour, till all of it was leavened."

He said also, "To what can we compare the Realm of God? how are we to put it in a parable? It is like a grain of mustard-seed ??less than any seed on earth when it is sown on earth; but once sown it springs up to be larger than any plant, throwing out such big branches that the wild birds can roost under its shadow."

So he said, "What is the Reign of God like? to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard-seed which a man took and put into his orchard, where it grew up and became a tree, and the wild birds roosted in its branches." He added, "To what shall I compare the Reign of God?read more.
It is like dough which a woman took and buried in three pecks of flour, till all of it was leavened."

And he said, "It is with the Realm of God as when a man has sown seed on earth; he sleeps at night and rises by day, and the seed sprouts and shoots up ??he knows not how. (For the earth bears crops by itself, the blade first, the ear of corn next, and then the grain full in the ear.)read more.
But whenever the crop is ready, he has the sickle put in at once, as harvest has come."

(A number of those who heard them speak believed, bringing up their numbers to [about] five thousand.)

So those who accepted what he said were baptized; about three thousand souls were brought in, that day.

On the other hand, crowds of men and women who believed in the Lord were brought in.

And the word of God spread; the number of the disciples in Jerusalem greatly increased, and a host of priests became obedient to the faith.

Now, all over Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria, the church enjoyed peace; it was consolidated, inspired by reverence for the Lord and by its invocation of the holy Spirit, and so increased in numbers.

the strong hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number believed and turned to the Lord.

At Iconium the same thing happened. They went into the synagogue of the Jews and spoke in such a way that a great body both of Jews and Greeks believed.

and the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in numbers day by day.