Personal Growth vs Spiritual Transformation

This week's Tuesday morning meeting with my pastor, David Gibbs, focused on the seemingly plethora of Personal Growth materials available.  The EntreLeadership podcast has guest interviewees on each episode, many of whom have written on the area of personal growth.  The question comes about, how does personal growth interact with spiritual transformation?

Rather than merely raise more questions, I would actually like to answer some.

Are PG and ST identical? NO
Are PG and ST similar? Yes
Are PG and ST compatible? Yes
Are PG and ST biblical? That is a good question.
Are PG and ST both necessary? Yes
Can one substitute for the other? See question 1 above, and NO.

So how do these two relate? Definitions are in order.  Personal Growth is a human initiated change of action/behavior/perception/knowledge that creates a more competent human in some selected area, finances, leadership, sales, oration, etc.  Spiritual Transformation is a divinely initiated change of spiritual character in an often time, undesired area. In other words, Personal Growth is a fleshly activity while Spiritual Transformation is a, need I say it, spiritual activity.

Whoa. I just lost some of you.  Personal Growth is not by definition, sinful. Flesh can have two connotations: physical and finite, or else self-centered.  By claiming that Personal Growth is fleshly, the only statement I am making is that Personal Growth has limits and takes place in our physical existence.

Is PG therefore not spiritual? NO

This question can be answered in the affirmative if one holds that the spiritual dominion of God is separate from and does not contain the physical dominion of humanity, in other words, heaven and earth are separate and unrelated spheres of existence. That position, to return to question 4 above, is definitely unbiblical, if not even abiblical.

Personal Growth in all its variations is therefore not sinful, the sinfulness enters the picture when humans begin to idolize the fleshly behavior and ignore the Creator. Spiritual Transformation is in the same fashion not always righteous. When Spiritual Transformation becomes the all encompassing ideal, and one forgets it is a process by which God makes us more useful within his kingdom, then it has become finite and limited and is now subject to all the problems that PG can face.

God has not created us to remain stagnant! God has not redeemed us through the demonstration of his love for us to fall again into idolatry! Rather God has brought us into his dominion in order that we might submit ourselves to him and to one another (Eph 5) so that his will might be accomplished on earth as it is in heaven.

Grace

Had the chance to lead a workshop on Grace at the Aprentis Conference at the end of September and now to preach at the Methodist Church in Towanda tomorrow on the Reality of Grace.  We have so many ideas about Grace that we frequently misunderstand what Grace means in our daily living.  We have so many modern explanations that segment Grace into the chronological timeline of our lives, i.e. Grace before we know God, Grace to know God, Grace after we know God.

But biblically Grace is not referred to apart from the people of God. So Grace is essentially an element that the people of God experience.  I discuss Grace as the empowerment of God.  The Grace of God is God empowering his people to be His PEOPLE.  Grace can not be understood apart from this reality.

Another element of Grace is that it enables faithfulness.  God empowers us to trust him as his people should trust him.

So, in short, I developed a new acronym for GRACE to replace God's Redemption At Christ's Expense, an acronym that focuses Grace into a single action.  The new Acronym is
God's
Redeeming
Activity
Christologically
Experienced.

Any thoughts?